Ali McCann / Return to Social
Curated by Emma Thompson
correspondences, Naarm/Melbourne
19 July to 17 August 2024
Ali McCann / Return to Social revisits the artist's performance, SOCIAL, co-presented with musician/composer Mat Watson as part of her 2022 residency project at correspondences, which extended her longstanding photographic inquiry into the theme of nostalgia and the aesthetics of pedagogy into the realm of science, sound and performance.
Encompassing tableau vivant, installation and performance SOCIAL evoked the socio-gravitational struggles of adolescent friendship, courtship and creative experimentation within the milieu of high school art classes, theatre productions and annual discos. The work sought to represent the experience of adolescent energy mired within the cosmic forces of dark matter – the mysterious element thought to bind galaxies together.
Return to Social, consisting of two parts, examines the performance’s archive. Part 1 features an installation of sound, objects, images, and video documentation, together with a long-form interview and conversation project. Part 2 features an exhibition of new still-life photographs drawn from connections and patterns found in the archive, memory and imagination, reality and illusion.