Things that Happen When Falling in Love

This is an event I will not be able to attend, but it has left me longing for a magic carpet. So here I post it for anyone who can make it to Gateshead, UK, betwen 2 April and 20 June. SIGH! [I literally sighed as I wrote that.]

Things that Happen When Falling in Love
Installation with Video, Photographs, Sculpture & Text by Raqs Media Collective

Venue: The BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art,
Town/City: Gateshead-on-Tyne, United Kingdom
Time: Exhibition runs from 2 April – 20 June 2010

In early April 2009 the last of the distinctive Titan cranes from the Tyneside Swan Hunter shipyard in Newcastle (UK) were loaded up onto a heavy load vessel and sailed out of the River Tyne. These vast iconic forms were dismantled and shipped to a new life at the Bharati shipyard on the west coast of India. This narrative forms one of the starting points of a new installation - Things that Happen When Falling in Love by Raqs Media Collective.

The installation brings together words, ships and people on the move to create an image of a world where the fortunes of both love and labour are framed and dismantled by global forces. It is an attempt to come to terms with the fact that we finally learn to value a history only when [we] consider its departure, its passage away from our lives.

Things that Happen When Falling in Love reveals the emotional undertow of Capitalism’s wake as it traverses continents and histories. The North East of England and the West Coast of India are drawn together experientially through industrial and geographical change. The passage of a ship bridges this transformation.

In their notes towards the making of this work, Raqs write, “Like on-shore sweethearts bidding farewell to men in sailing ships, the world watches its own histories float away. Sometimes, when finally falling in love, only the words for knowing loss and longing remain.”