Art Sonje Center presents Australian artist Angelica Mesiti’s solo exhibition, Relay League from 12 January to 11 February 2018. Mesiti’s interest in community, ephemeral cultural tradition and spirituality is expressed through non-linguistic forms of communication experimenting with vocabularies of sound and gesture.

This exhibition stemmed from a Morse code message – Calling all, this is our final cry before our eternal silence – transmitted by the French Navy on 31 January 1997 to signal the imminent demise of this communication method, which was phased out after 130 years. Sound sculpture, Appel à Tous/Calling All (2017), provides a visual and sonic cue to the ideas of transmission and reception that resonate throughout the entire exhibition space. Relay League (2017), a 3-channel video, leaves a sensory impression of a language that has been transformed into a code, which in turn iterates as a musical score, a body movement and a haptic exchange, enabling multiple acts of translation. Through these two works, Mesiti attempts a communion with strange gestures within communities. Citizens Band (2012) is a video ensemble that performs a distinct sound across time and space, using a technique inflected with its specific cultural origins by 4 migrant musicians in Paris and Sydney. By chasing a trace of their auditory languages, Mesiti adds value to the ephemeral cultural tradition and captures its cultural distinctiveness recalled in the lyrics and rhythms.

In association with the exhibition, an artist talk will be held at the Art Hall in Art Sonje Center at 5 pm on 11 January 2018. Angelica Mesiti will have a talk with Alexie Glass-Kantor, the executive director of Artspace, Sydney, which commissioned Relay League, and Haeju Kim, the vice director of Art Sonje Center, Seoul.

About the Artist

Angelica Mesiti was born in Sydney in 1976 and is currently based in Paris. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in Sydney. Mesiti works primarily with video and installation, incorporation performance, dance and musicality to explore ideas of community, cultural tradition and spirituality. She is interested in performed cultural traditions in a state of transformation or at risk of extinction due to complex social, economic or cultural shifts.

Mesiti has exhibited extensively at institutions and biennales worldwide including: 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); 13th Istanbul Biennial, 2nd Aichi Triennale, 5th Auckland Triennial and 11th Sharjah Biennale (2013); as well as at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016); Barbican Centre, London (2015); Jewish Museum, New York (2014); Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, Lyon (2013), France.

Her solo projects were shown at ‘O’ Space, Aarhaus, Denmark (2017), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017); Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney (2017), Artspace, Sydney (2017), Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada (2015); Lilith Performance Studio, Malmö, Sweden (2015); Galerie Allen, Paris (2015); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Canada (2014), Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts, USA (2014).

Mesiti was a finalist in the prestigious Prix Meurice for contemporary art (2016) and is the recipient of the inaugural Ian Potter Moving Image Commission (2013); the Anne Landa Award for video and new media arts (2013).

●Opening
11 January 2018, 6 pm
Admission: Free

●Artist Talk: Angelica Mesiti
Pannel: Alexie Glass-Kantor(Director of Art Space Sydney), Haeju Kim(Deputy Director of Art Sonje Center)
11 January 2018, 5 pm
B1 Art Hall
Admission: Free

* Relay League (2017), one of the works presented in this exhibition was commissioned and developed by Artspace, Sydney. The development and presentation of Relay League is supported by Commissioning Partner the Keir Foundation. Relay League was produced with the support of C ND Centre National de la Danse, Paris and University of New South Wales Art & Design. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.