Laure Prouvost, No More Front Tears

Broadcasting globally throughout October 2022, coinciding with Frieze London and CIRCA’s second anniversary, Laure Prouvost will take centre stage on the CIRCA platform with a new 2.5min video work that explores the migration of other-than-humans, poetically navigating and providing deeper context surrounding questions of borders and immigration.

Launching 13th October, complementing the global video presentation and in conjunction with Frieze week, Prouvost will activate her first AR experience in Piccadilly Circus, London that brings to life a giant, painterly octopus. Wrapping around the Anteros Statue, she is resting after her long march to London, following a protest gathering of other-than-human compatriots. Marching together, through unscripted encounters between this world’s manifold, they seek to develop infrastructures for deep futurity.

Partnering with CHOOSE LOVE, who support refugees and displaced people globally, this month’s #CIRCAECONOMY print by Prouvost will power a £5000 donation to the charity. Further information below.

Laure Prouvost says 

Could we be birds, sea animals who belong to no nation? Free to follow our own migration routes? This work for CIRCA addresses urgent questions of earthly survival, such as other-than-human and human rights. 

The video presentation will address the passer by, suggesting the possibility to become one another in empathy with all materiality. In conjunction, the Piccadilly Circus activation is an octopus (visible on AR) taking rest, taking a break after a long voyage marching with placards and protest signs from a gathering she held of other-than-human comrades on a ride seeking togetherness in union.

Could one become a bird flying across continents, or an octopus swimming across oceans thinking through touch. Giving us a moment to pause and imagine a more fluid future. Could we imagine migration routes for all species, humans and non humans. WE AS ONE  belonging to one world, could we dream of NO MORE FRONT TEARS?

Language – in its broadest sense – permeates the video, sound, installation and performance work of Laure Prouvost. Known for her immersive and mixed-media installations that combine film and installation in humorous and idiosyncratic ways, Prouvost’s work addresses miscommunication and ideas becoming lost in translation. Playing with language as a tool for the imagination, Prouvost is interested in confounding linear narratives and expected associations among words, images and meaning. She combines existing and imagined personal memories with artistic and literary references to create complex film installations that muddy the distinction between fiction and reality. At once seductive and jarring, her approach to filmmaking employs layered storytelling, quick edits, montage and wordplay and is composed of a rich, tactile assortment of images, sounds, spoken and written phrases. The videos are often shown within immersive environments which comprise found objects, sculptures, painting and drawings, signs, furniture and architectural assemblages, that are rendered complicit within the overarching narrative of the installation.

Laure Prouvost was born in Lille, France (1978) and is currently based in Brussels. She received her BFA from Central St Martins, London in 2002 and studied towards her MFA at Goldsmiths College, London. She also took part in the LUX Associate Programme. Prouvost won the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2011 and was the recipient of the Turner Prize in 2013.

CIRCA 20:22 OCTOBER PROGRAMME
NO MORE FRONT TEARS by Laure Prouvost
5 – 31 October, CIRCA 20:22

20:22 BST ➳ London, Piccadilly Lights

20:22 CET ➳ Berlin, Limes, Kurfürstendamm

20:22 ACT ➳ Melbourne, Fed Square

20:22 UTC ➳ Milan, Luxottica, Piazzale Cadorna

20:22 EST ➳ New York, Luxottica, Times Square

20:22 KST ➳ Seoul, COEX K-Pop Square