PRESS RELEASE
‘How Long is Indefinite?’
Detention without time limit in the UK
Documentary Premiere
Every year the UK Border Agency holds thousands of migrants in Immigration Removal Centres without knowing when or if they can deport them. There is no time limit to this detention; they are held indefinitely often for years on end.
‘How Long is Indefinite?’ exposes an absurd and inhumane detention system through the lives of three people trapped in limbo with no end in sight. The powerful evocation of detention from those going through it highlights a detrimental and futile practice and asks if it can ever be justified.
Fouad, an Iranian political activist, came to the UK as a refugee in 2000 and has been detained for over 19 months; the Iranian embassy won’t accept him back, yet the UKBA refuses to release him. He remains in limbo with no future. His friends and fiancé describe the impact of his incarceration as a situation in which they can do nothing but wait. Fouad shares his experiences of a system as seven months of an ordeal in which he is seen as subhuman. We also hear from Saleh, a Darfurian asylum seeker torn from his children after 20 years in the UK and detained for almost 2 years, unable to prove his ethnicity and Aissata whose detention experience drove her to hunger strike for 28 days. Professionals in detention law and practice reveal the bureaucracy behind this system that result in its failure to function for the purposes of those in and outside its walls.
‘How Long is Indefinite’ reveals how the fear created around immigration manifests in this unbearable detention limbo and asks how such treatment can be accepted in a society heralding civil liberties and human rights.
A Q&A with the Director Alexis Wood and contributors will follow the screening.
An exhibition from Nana Varveropoulou and those formerly detained accompanies the screening. Nana exhibits initial work from her photography project "No Man’s Land”, an ongoing collaborative project that explores experiences of indefinite immigration detention, produced by a group of detainees at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.
Reza, formerly held in detention for 18 months, shares paintings and drawings inspired by his experiences of the UK detention system.
To find out more about the documentary project or to get involved please go to our facebook group ‘How Long is Indefinite?’ documentary: http://tinyurl.com/2vsvn79
For press enquiries please contact howlongisindefinite@hotmail.co.uk or call the Director Alexis Wood on 0794 774 3396
How Long is Indefinite is produced in association with Glocal Films http://www.glocalfilms.net/
24/11/2010
23/11/2010
08/11/2010
Jimmy at Mol's Place
“23 Macklin Street. It is believed that a ghost inhabits this space. His name is Jimmy. Like Jimmy, we, along with our work, will enter into the space as visitors. The fleeting moments of Jimmy’s presence resonate in the history of the building, as does the work we have put within it.” Omnifuss, 2010.
This show explores the perceiver and the perceived, the present and the absent, the macro and the micro, the sensual and the impossible. Is there a relationship between the way we look at ghosts and the way we look at art? Do you need to be a believer in order to accept contemporary works of art as pertinent?
Andrea Greenwood and Jack Strange have joined Sam Hacking and Christopher Patrick, the partnership behind Omnifuss, in a show of site specific works for Mol’s Place. The building here has become the central character in a theatre of both domesticity and commerciality. The historical and physical dynamics of the space have been explored through both playful and threatening devices of work to create a multimedia exhibition, including the use of sound and performative installations, print and sculpture.
“We will be inhabiting this space with Jimmy, and just like ghosts, our work will appear momentarily, only to vanish from the space once our time here has finished. It is our absurd holiday. We have made works for the space rather than imposing something preconceived upon it.” Omnifuss, 2010.
Mol’s Place, 23 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NN
Opening hours: 19th – 3rd December 2010, 12-6pm
15/10/2010
11/10/2010
PRESS RELEASE: FAR FROM TURMOIL
13th – 17th October 2010
Mol’s Place presents Far From Turmoil, an exhibition of work by three Dutch Brabant artists; Johan Lennarts, Pieter Laurens Mol and JCJ Vanderheyden, curated by Maurice van Valen. Individually, these artists have exhibited widely in The Netherlands including at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven which also holds a substantial number of their works in its collection.
As opposed to Calvinist Holland, Brabant is an historically poor, Catholic region in the south of the Netherlands with terrains distinct from the typical Dutch landscape of polders, windmills and dikes. Instead, widely scattered small plots of agricultural land, sandy grounds and woods dominate the horizon. In the past, Brabant has inspired socially engaged painters like Vincent van Gogh to depict the life of peasants in arduous conditions. It was only after the Second World War that Brabant began to thrive economically and culturally.
The title of the exhibition comes from an inscription on a nineteenth century etching depicting a bucolic English landscape. Escaping the industrial turmoil of the cities in favour for the reverie of the countryside was a Victorian pastime which parallels these Brabant artists' fundamental lure to nature. Contrasting the legacy of traditional Dutch landscape painting depicting idyllic and stylised topography, the selection of work in Far From Turmoil is characterised by abstract and philosophical sensibilities, vibrant colours and subtle humour.
Johan Lennarts (Eindhoven, 1932 -1991) had early associations with the CoBrA group in Amsterdam, and went on to develop a distinctive and painterly language oscillating between figuration and abstraction. Lennarts represents Brabant in a formalist and direct manner where dense 'growth constructs' and haystacks dominate the canvas, and perspectives and pathways tip into the picture plane. The extensive use of green hues in Lennarts’ paintings became his trademark signature. Works rarely seen in public before have been selected for the exhibition.
Pieter Laurens Mol (Breda, 1946) is an artist who has an enduring interest in seasonal changes and habitual activities of farming. This exhibition includes photography, sculpture, drawing and painting by Mol dating from as early as 1966 to a recent work made this year. His work has a poetic and alchemic quality in its amusing play with materials and titles. Plattelandsverdrag (Pact of the Peasants), (1972) comprises ten oak panels each painted a different colour extracted from a Brabant landscape; there is the blue of the sky, the golden green of the grasses and grains, and the black and white of tar and lime stable walls. In the guise of an abstract minimalist painting, the work takes on a panoramic and poetic nature by representing the raw make-up and visual components for a rural landscape.
JCJ Vanderheyden (‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1928) is well-known for his abstract paintings, such as the minimal horizons, devoid of details and local references. The work contemplates spatiality while the forms register as checkerboards, portals, frames and screens. The compositional clarity of the paintings articulates and redefines the immediate surrounding space. The exhibited works point towards Vanderheyden’s interest in the landscape as a collective and philosophical experience.
Note to editors:
Mol’s Place, 23 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NN
Opening Hours: 12 – 6pm (or by appointment), 13th – 17th October 2010
Tube: Holborn / Covent Garden
Mol’s Place is an occasional exhibition space and home of Jan Mol a Dutch, London-based art collector
Far From Turmoil is curated by Maurice van Valen (Eindhoven, 1971), a Dutch lawyer and art collector, and assisted by Katy Orkisz and Melissa Blanchflower.
For further information, images or appointments please contact molsplace@hotmail.com or 07826 378297
The exhibition will coincide with the Frieze Art Fair 2010 in London’s Regents Park.
Maurice van Valen would like to thank Jan Mol for his generosity in supporting the exhibition, Pieter Laurens Mol and JCJ Vanderheyden for their enthusiasm and commitment to the project and the Johan Lennarts Foundation, Lena Nies and Art Transit in their valuable assistance with organising loans.
Mol’s Place presents Far From Turmoil, an exhibition of work by three Dutch Brabant artists; Johan Lennarts, Pieter Laurens Mol and JCJ Vanderheyden, curated by Maurice van Valen. Individually, these artists have exhibited widely in The Netherlands including at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven which also holds a substantial number of their works in its collection.
As opposed to Calvinist Holland, Brabant is an historically poor, Catholic region in the south of the Netherlands with terrains distinct from the typical Dutch landscape of polders, windmills and dikes. Instead, widely scattered small plots of agricultural land, sandy grounds and woods dominate the horizon. In the past, Brabant has inspired socially engaged painters like Vincent van Gogh to depict the life of peasants in arduous conditions. It was only after the Second World War that Brabant began to thrive economically and culturally.
The title of the exhibition comes from an inscription on a nineteenth century etching depicting a bucolic English landscape. Escaping the industrial turmoil of the cities in favour for the reverie of the countryside was a Victorian pastime which parallels these Brabant artists' fundamental lure to nature. Contrasting the legacy of traditional Dutch landscape painting depicting idyllic and stylised topography, the selection of work in Far From Turmoil is characterised by abstract and philosophical sensibilities, vibrant colours and subtle humour.
Johan Lennarts (Eindhoven, 1932 -1991) had early associations with the CoBrA group in Amsterdam, and went on to develop a distinctive and painterly language oscillating between figuration and abstraction. Lennarts represents Brabant in a formalist and direct manner where dense 'growth constructs' and haystacks dominate the canvas, and perspectives and pathways tip into the picture plane. The extensive use of green hues in Lennarts’ paintings became his trademark signature. Works rarely seen in public before have been selected for the exhibition.
Pieter Laurens Mol (Breda, 1946) is an artist who has an enduring interest in seasonal changes and habitual activities of farming. This exhibition includes photography, sculpture, drawing and painting by Mol dating from as early as 1966 to a recent work made this year. His work has a poetic and alchemic quality in its amusing play with materials and titles. Plattelandsverdrag (Pact of the Peasants), (1972) comprises ten oak panels each painted a different colour extracted from a Brabant landscape; there is the blue of the sky, the golden green of the grasses and grains, and the black and white of tar and lime stable walls. In the guise of an abstract minimalist painting, the work takes on a panoramic and poetic nature by representing the raw make-up and visual components for a rural landscape.
JCJ Vanderheyden (‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1928) is well-known for his abstract paintings, such as the minimal horizons, devoid of details and local references. The work contemplates spatiality while the forms register as checkerboards, portals, frames and screens. The compositional clarity of the paintings articulates and redefines the immediate surrounding space. The exhibited works point towards Vanderheyden’s interest in the landscape as a collective and philosophical experience.
Note to editors:
Mol’s Place, 23 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NN
Opening Hours: 12 – 6pm (or by appointment), 13th – 17th October 2010
Tube: Holborn / Covent Garden
Mol’s Place is an occasional exhibition space and home of Jan Mol a Dutch, London-based art collector
Far From Turmoil is curated by Maurice van Valen (Eindhoven, 1971), a Dutch lawyer and art collector, and assisted by Katy Orkisz and Melissa Blanchflower.
For further information, images or appointments please contact molsplace@hotmail.com or 07826 378297
The exhibition will coincide with the Frieze Art Fair 2010 in London’s Regents Park.
Maurice van Valen would like to thank Jan Mol for his generosity in supporting the exhibition, Pieter Laurens Mol and JCJ Vanderheyden for their enthusiasm and commitment to the project and the Johan Lennarts Foundation, Lena Nies and Art Transit in their valuable assistance with organising loans.
05/10/2010
08/07/2010
Review
Article by Jennifer Cavanagh who is the Notting Hill editor for MyVillage.com and a contributor to various publications.
http://london.myvillage.com/place/mols-place
http://www.jennycavanagh.com/
http://london.myvillage.com/place/mols-place
http://www.jennycavanagh.com/
Private Reception 1st July 2010
Over 170 guests joined Mol's Team for a glass or two of pink champagne to celebrate the opening of Decadence and Drama on 1st July.
All photographs courtesy Millie Doughty
All photographs courtesy Millie Doughty
Conrad Ventur
If You Go Away, (Dusty
Conrad Ventur (b.1977), based in
Selected recent exhibitions: Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York City, 2010, (group), Because We Are, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, USA, 2010, (group), Forever and a Day, ROKEBY, London, 2010, (solo), Fragments of Fame, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, USA, 2010, (solo).
Elisa Pône
I'm looking for something to believe in, 2007, video. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Michel Rein Paris. Image credit Ghosting
Elisa Pône (b. 1979), based in Paris
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris Cergy, 2005
Selected recent exhibitions: Let's Dance, Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France, 2010, (group), Bons baisers de Bialystok (curated by United Artists & Mathilde Villeneuve), Bialystok, Poland, 2010 (group), Loading, (curated by Judith Lavagna), PMgalerie, Berlin, Germany, 2010 (group), Fermer les yeux. Sauver sa peau., Galerie Michel Rein,
This video will be presented in October in the exhibition Let's Dance at the MAC/VAL, France
Ben Newton
Untitled, 2010, MDF, gesso, 24ct gold leaf. Courtesy of the artist.
Ben Newton (b.1975), based in
Royal
Selected recent exhibitions: Keep Me Posted, Posted (curated by Julia Royse),
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