ANNE TALLENTIRE
ARENA INDUSTRIALE (INDUSTRIAL ARENA)

Anne Tallentire was born in 1949 in Northern Ireland and is currently living and working in London. Her project is a strong dynamic study that employs a range of media in which we see a mixture of video, performance and photography.

Her work is concerned with transient experience in relation to the social, geographical or political in daily life. For Storie Urbane (Urban Stories) (entitled Arena Industriale - Industrial Arena) she focuses on spaces associated with apparently mundane and yet essential aspects of day-to-day living that often remain out of sight. Arena Industriale explores aspects of three locations that are found geographically and socially outside the town boundaries of Reggio Emilia - for example the TAV - High-Speed Train workers' temporary village, the old Officine Meccaniche Reggiane plant and an abandoned factory on the outer ring used for temporary habitation.

Four series of still images and one video work capture decisive aspects of activities associated with these sites and the people who experience working and living there. She considers the significance of how nondescript objects have been placed, arranged and ordered in these places and with an economy of means visually articulates a politics of location relevant to contemporary experience.

This is how the artist describes her experience in Reggio Emilia:

"Working in the heart of an industrial area was a test for me, I have not worked in quite such an environment before and I was curious to see what would happen in this situation. I approach each new location conscious that I am a stranger or guest and endeavour to stay aware of the ethical issues that arise when using a camera in a location that is unfamiliar. After the necessary negotiations and permissions I work tentatively - gathering material according with various sets of self imposed rules that are devised according to each circumstance. The camera is primarily used to produce what is a record of 'interventions' - the material of which constitutes the work.

In Reggio I looked at three sites in the Industrial zone of the city where I employed a performative method of working using small hand-held digital cameras to record activities carried out in environments associated with labour. This involved an investigation of how value is signified in frequently overlooked, insignificant, everyday actions and events. Although these sites are located on the periphery of the city contact with the products of these industries and the commercial world to some extent conditions all our lives. But what interested me here was not the grand narrative of Industrial production in Reggio Emilia, rather more the hidden aspect of the overlooked and inconsequential activities that relate to the conditions of their production.

Besides 'Officine Meccaniche Reggiane' I worked in two other sites. At the temporary village built for the workers of the High-Speed Train (TAV) I recorded various details of the village facilities in the dormitories, canteen, laboratory, car wash, stores, security control and recreation area. What interested me here in works entitled Villagio and Dormitorio was how the architecture, in this impersonal yet thoughtfully constructed environment, declared its transitory nature through a uniformity of materials and how each space reflected life lived anonymously here by those who often travel long distances from home to find opportunities for work.

I am interested in how objects are deliberately placed or sited and how placement can configure space to provide the construction of a functioning social arena, a workspace or a decoy. Furthermore I am concerned with the ways in which the ordering of things signifies cultural, social, political and aesthetic concerns related to our use of space. The second site at the edge of the Outer Ring of the Industrial zone provided a context to explore these ideas. This abandoned building, transformed subtly into a living space by 'migrant' workers, appeared at first sight to contain nothing more than a random scattering of everyday obsolete items beds, armchairs, cookers, tiles, broken doors, clothes racks etc however it had been carefully designed to provide distinct areas designated for sleep, play and communal life. Indicative of the expedient nature of working on the move in the world to-day in often difficult circumstances the thoughtful delineation of this space motivated two series of works - Dimora and Divertimento.

Finally in Lavandino, my investigation inside the former Officine Meccaniche Reggiane extended this study of placement to incorporate movement in a structural video work. Shot in the washroom of the factory a single repetitive iconic image of a dripping tap constructed from six frames of video ironically explores the spatial and temporal characteristics of public and private space and is made in recognition of the workers who are in the process of leaving the factory as it slowly closes down."

A number of solo exhibitions

• 2005 Drift: diagram vii, Void Gallery, Derry (catalogue)
• 2000 Dispersal, Orchard Gallery, Derry* (catalogue)
• 1999 Instances, Irish Pavilion, (representing Ireland), Venice Biennale, Venice (catalogue)
• 1999 Instances, Lux Gallery, London (catalogue)
• 1998 Trailer, Project, Dublin*

A number of collective exhibitions

• 2005 Arbeit*, Galerie im Taxipalais, Innsbruck, Austria, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork (catalogue)
• 2004 Densité + 0, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, Kunsthalle, Fri-art, Fribourg, Switzerland* (catalogue)
• 2004 Multiplicity, Fota House, Garnish Island, Cork, Context Gallery, Derry (catalogue)
• 2003 Out of Place, The Terrace Gallery, Harewood House, Leeds, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle
• 2003 No Fixed Position, Lethaby Gallery, London
• 2002 Sum of the Parts, South London Gallery, London*
• 2002 Strike, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton (catalogue)
• 2002 Something Else, Turku Art Museum, Turku, Amos Anderson Museum, Helenski (catalogue)
• 2002 Private Views London Print Studio, London, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury (catalogue)
• 2001 Neue Welt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (catalogue)
• 2001 Predator, KX auf Kampnagel, Hamburg*
• 2001 Travellers' Tales, inIVA website
• 2000 Multiples X 3, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Camden Art Centre, London
• 2000 Rutger Hauer, Perry's Motors, London
• 2000 Urban Situations, Galerie im Taxipalais, Innsbruck
• 2000 Sleight of Hand , Five Years, Underwood Street, London
• 1999 From There to Here, Konsthallen, Goteborg* (catalogue)
• 1999 Home 2, Flodden Road, London*
• 1999 0044, PS1 Gallery, New York, Albert Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork* (catalogue)
• 1997 Bouncer, Concourse Gallery Byam Shaw, London*