GARAGELAND / MIGRATION / TRANSITION GALLERY

To celebrate the launch of Garageland 9: Migration, Transition Gallery is proud to present Lecture on Migration on Sun 29 Nov at 3pm.
Lecture on Migration is a work by Andy Holden first performed at Goldsmith College in 2004.
It involves a one hour lecture by the artist's father Peter Holden, author of the RSPB Handbook of British Birds and Migrants and Migration.  
The talk focuses on the facts and mysteries of bird migration, illustrated with his own slides taken over the past thirty years.

The talk will be followed at 4pm by the launch of Garageland 9. There will also be a final chance to view the show There and Everywhere which features work by Garageland contributor David Webb alongside Liz Harrison and Helen Couchman.

Entrance to the lecture is free but places are limited so please arrive promptly.






Garageland 9: Migration

Humming Birds, Irit Rogoff, Islands, Yinka Shonibare, Road Trips, Gypsies, Hew Locke, Nomadic Architecture, Harmony Korine, District 9, Andy Holden, East End Galleries, Joey Ryken, Starlings, Otolith Group, Monarch Butterflies, Communist Cinema, Data Migration Systems, Family Histories and much more...

It has never been easier to travel. But alongside our modern, super speedy connections there is an alternate universe of less glamorous migration where desperate methods of transport prevail accompanied by the unwanted but omnipresent travelling companions of prejudice and resentment.

Given the right (or should that be wrong) circumstances we would probably all choose to migrate – it’s about survival after all. Some groups of people such as Romanies, Bedouins and Tuaregs are nomadic, moving from place to place, a lifestyle which although idealistically perceived as romantic, is becoming harder to sustain when there are so many governmental demands on us to have a permanent address. 

The experience of the migrant in a strange land, and the strength of feelings that leaving home can cause, has led to some of the most poignant art of the last century. We have some new stories to add to the canon; David Webb (who instigated the theme of the issue) recounts the migration of his grandmother from Africa to the UK and his own emotional connection with that journey, while in Vilayet, Majed Aslam describes a drift through suburbia chalking the sides of the buildings each time he turns a corner so he can find his way back through the monotony of the bland architecture.

The flipside to all this Sebaldian darkness is that migration can also be recreational, educational and fun. Rachel Potts looks at the American road trip in Real Gone, which has entered cultural mythology as a contemporary successor to the Grand Tour. And then there are the amazing pre programmed migrations that animals, and birds in particular, make year after year, which are mysteri- ous and awe inspiring. We have a list of astonishing Bird Migration Facts and this issue’s cover artists, Andrew Curtis and Michael Hall, feature an image of an exotic, migrated parrot sitting on a back yard washing line.

But maybe the confusion of feelings that the whole migration issue evokes can be summed up simply as a natural dissatisfaction with our lot. Film director Harmony Korine puts it beautifully; ‘Most of the time, when I’m living in a new place I hate living there. I never really like it until I’ve gone, and then I find out that the next place is so much worse than the place I just left.’

Cathy Lomax, editor


Garageland costs £4.50 and is available from art book shops around the UK
It is also available to order online

Transition Gallery
Unit 25a, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, London E8 4QN
020 7254 4202 / 07941 208566