'We are Floating in Space' Exchange Gallery and Newlyn. 2023

‘We are Floating in Space’. Newlyn and Exchange, Penzance. 11 February - 3 June 2023

Walking into the Exchange I saw a lot of video screens and a lot of explanatory texts. 

I instantly felt a bit depressed - that I could not be bothered, that artists seem to think a video that bores you to death with its glacial pace can compete with the snappy speed we are used to in tv. However, something kept me trying and I slowed down enough to look around. 

I found a project about involuntary infertility which I wanted to read about although I thought it was approached far too obliquely and symbolically to pack the punch visually that Melanie Stidolph's written accounts had. 

Naomi Frears shows two videos- not too long- one using written memories about her father dying and the other images of men falling off their surf boards in a variety of balletic and amusing ways. She makes a strange connection between the two and it’s eloquent. 

Then I drove over to Newlyn. Here there’s a lot of playful stuff - from a bronze fish finger

with its own sound of the sea by Eleanor Turnbull, to sea shanties with a gay slant by Rhys Morgan and choir, found seashore objects and similarly constructed complex creations by Anna Harris

and a beautiful dark stool made from ancient washed up wood by Alistair and Fleur Mackie. Oh and video of synchronised swimmers for environmental improvement. 

There’s a lot more at both places and Blair Todd has chosen and given a chance to exhibit to a variety of artists who aren’t all the usual suspects.