Creating dangerously (we-I insist!)
Summer 2021
“After a devastating eighteen months of socio-political catastrophe, Creating dangerously (we-I insist!) speculates on the optics of protest, channels of refusal, as well as the desire for pleasure and softness...Researched and produced as urgent meditations on freedom, this trilogy of films attempts to straddle a sense of looking back and looking forward whilst still being immersed in both epidemiological and political strife.”
Alberta Whittle, photograph by Matthew A Williams
During Summer 2021 Abergavenny Train Station was one of a series of new locations across the UK hosting ‘Art Night 2021’ a free month-long annual contemporary art festival. The presentation launched Peak’s new cultural space ‘Platfform 2’ on the southbound side of the railway track. Over five weekends from 18 June to 17 July 2021 Platfform 2 presented Creating dangerously (we-I insist!), a trio of film works by Barbadian-Scottish artist Alberta Whittle.
Alberta Whittle, Creating Dangerously (we-I insist!) at Platfform 2 with a still from RESET (2020); photograph by Polly Thomas
Art Night 2021, curated by Helen Nisbet, was the festival’s fifth edition but the first to collaborate with partners and venues across the U.K. in a a full month of night-time events. The opening weekend at Platfform 2 featured Alberta Whittle’s brand-new film commission for Art Night 2021, HOLDING THE LINE: a refrain in two parts, joined by other works in the trilogy over successive weekends of the festival month.
“Contemplative, I’ve been shaken, spiritual / ghostly….Very lovely seeing art in such a public and unconventional space. I can’t wait to see what comes next.” – Visitor to Platfform 2.
Peak commissioned responses from Wales-based artists, writers and poets through a free publication called ululations and a pilot summer professional development programme for young artists, curators and writers offered paid opportunities to invigilate the space alongside training and group workshops.
“While invigilating at Platfform 2, I was aware of the constant buzzing movement of people through the landscape. In contrast, the small screening room offered a serene resting point for weary travellers. But Alberta Whittle's films highlighted how minorities never had the pleasure to move freely, but instead were forced to migrate to entirely unknown places against their will. The train station setting emphasised just how fortunate we are: to be able to go wherever we want, whenever we want.” – Invigilator at Platfform 2.
About the artist
Alberta Whittle (b.1980, Bridgetown Barbados) lives and works in Glasgow. Whittle’s practice-led research involves performance, writing, digital collage and video installation and she has recently exhibited at Dundee Contemporary Arts, (2019), 13th Havana Biennial (2019) and GoMA, Glasgow (2019). Over 2021, Alberta will be sharing new work as part of British Art Show 9, Liverpool Biennial, at Glasgow Sculpture Studios and at the University of Johannesburg. In 2022 she will be representing Scotland at the 59th Venice Biennale.