Sutapa Biswas
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Artwork

Light Rain

Light rain, 2015-2021 (figures 14 and 15), is an immersive, poetic moving image work and installation. Filmed in the geographically volcanic region of Oita, in the Japanese city of Beppu. Famous for its hot springs, where steam rises relentlessly day and night from the depths of the city’s landscape framing all aspects of existence for its inhabitants, this two-screen installation of Light rain is a meditation on time and the quotidian. Set within this landscape, the work opens with a sequence of words written in Japanese with English sub-titles beneath: ‘From the bowels of this earth rises up… light rain’. Presenting a scene shot from two viewpoints, a billowing of clouds lifting into the night sky appears at first glance to be a sign of a disturbing event unfolding. What seemed redolent perhaps of news footage from a war zone, slowly unfolds differently. Its spectacle nevertheless remains unsettling. Recorded at night from the small ledge of a precipice overlooking the town of Kanawa as it sleeps, the sounds of cicada are intermittently interrupted by the ambient sounds of passing vehicles. The slightly staggered timings between the two projections draws our attention to the passing of time, and the slow disconcerting filtering of volcanic activity and life which continues around it.

Provenance

2021-2022 - Sutapa Biswas, in Sutapa Biswas: Lumen. Solo exhibition, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

26 June 2021 - 20 March 2022

Video description

A silent excerpt from the two-screen film. Two views of the same night scene sit side by side against black, filmed from slightly different positions and a few moments out of step.

From a ledge high above the town of Kanawa in Beppu, Japan, the camera looks over dark rooftops, lit apartment blocks and street lights. Thick columns and clouds of volcanic steam rise from the town into the night sky, lit orange from below. At first the clouds look like smoke from a fire or a disaster; slowly it becomes clear this is the hot-spring steam that rises over the town day and night. The excerpt fades in and out.

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