A L E X G A W R O N S K I

Small Mercies

.

Alex Gawronski, Small Mercies

‘Created at Blenheim House’, Blenheim House, Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Curated by Randwick City Council

(Plywood, single channel HD video, projected)

Responding to the historical specificities of the exhibition context, the image of the fire symbolically suggests spirits and hauntings, in art and especially in cinema. At the time of the completion of Blenheim House in 1848, early photography – which would soon lead to cinema – was shrouded in narratives of ghostly hauntings and uncanny doubles. Here, the relationship of reality to its representation is reversed: the empty fireplace functions like an image while the space above it, traditionally reserved for a picture, is animated and alive. The projected fire, offering no actual warmth, nonetheless grants the small mercy of the warmth of an imagined reanimation.