Exhibition
Port City: On Mobility and Exchange
Sat 15 Sep – Sun 11 Nov
10.00am to 8.00pm
FREE

Please note: This exhibition closes at 6pm on Thursdays

Maria Thereza Alves, Yto Barrada, Ursula Biemann, Kayle Brandon & Heath Bunting, Maria Magdalena Campos Pons, Ofri Cnaani & Jenny Vogel, Mary Evans, Meschac Gaba, Raimi Gbadamosi, Melanie Jackson, Grzegorz Klaman, Erik van Lieshout, William Pope.L, Kate Rich, Zineb Sedira, Zafos Xagoraris

Port City is a large-scale international exhibition addressing issues of migration, trade and contemporary slavery. Set in Arnolfini, it will also be accompanied by a related programme of live art, music, film, literature, events and workshops as well as off-site projects.

Several works in the exhibition draw attention to the experience of migration, in particular between North Africa and Europe. Ursula Biemann's video installation Sahara Chronicle follows the routes of migrants across the desert focusing on Morocco, Niger and Mauritania. Moroccan artist Yto Barrada's work refers to the Straits of Gibraltar; the narrow divide between two continents. Her photographic series Sleepers presents images from the public park of her home town of Tangiers, where would-be emigres await their moment of passage.

Melanie Jackson's new project The Undesirables incorporates a panorama of etchings and drawings made from media reports of the wreck of the MSC Napoli that foundered off Branscombe in Devon last year. These are combined with the animated stories of dock workers she has interviewed in Avonmouth, Bristol and other container ports.

Coinciding with Abolition 200, Bristol's commemoration of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade, several new works have been made in response to Bristol's specific context. These works explore the city's histories of trade as well as the contemporary port. For Seeds of Change, Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves has researched sites around the Floating Harbour where ballast would have been off-loaded, taking samples from the riverbanks within which seeds can lie dormant for hundreds of years. These ballast seeds have been germinated and tended by local groups so as to make a garden of 'living history', reflecting the different routes travelled by Bristol merchants.

Other highlights of the exhibition include a vast model of a 'global village' made from sugar by Meschac Gaba, kaleidoscopes showing contemporary scenes from the triangle of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Mary Evans and the Uphone by Kate Rich, a phone-in web interface that audiences can use to leave their comments and responses to Port City.
Exhibition Tours

There are Saturday Exhibition Tours available with a different person leading an informal tour of the exhibition offering their own perspective.

Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay
Bristol
BSI 4QA
UK