Building things (2021)

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to present an Associate Programme of artist moving image to coincide with Rebecca Moss’ solo exhibition ‘Unstable Condition’. Works by Esther Ferrer, Emma Hart and Wood and Harrison accompany three short films by Moss, where all artists perform humorous actions to the camera, drawing on the tradition of slapstick humour. These works explore the complexities and absurdities of the mechanisms by which we interact– with objects, our surroundings and each other – while opening up questions around non-verbal communication, resourcefulness and chance.

Building Things, by Wood and Harrison, sees a camera descending past the floors of what looks like the prototype of an office building. On each floor, the artists use their bodies – and props – to perform a series of short, punchy skits, humorously interpreting day-to-day activities that we might imagine take place in these spaces. It looks at this familiar yet ambiguous space and questions how we face labour and the need for productivity, confronting us with increasingly absurd scenarios. Wood and Harrison’s minimalist works experiment with how the human body occupies its surroundings and play with the tensions between chance and calculated processes.