Nervous Lines
Martin Seeds and Felix Shumba
8 March - 6 April 2024
Nervous Lines is the culmination of many conversations over time and distance between Martin Seeds and Felix Shumba, both of whom are artists engaged with the history of occupation in their home countries of Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe.
For many years in the second half of the 20th century, Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe endured bloodshed and angst in their relationship with Britain, and also within sections of their own indigenous populations. To a degree, we consider these internecine conflicts to have been resolved: lines of conflict that once divided families, communities and nations now criss-cross the pages of history books; settlement deals were signed on dotted lines; maps were drawn and territories marked out. Roads and railways that once carried military traffic now move commercial cargo and the lines of communication are mostly clear as once competing factions cross each other’s boundaries in a kind of mutual toleration. Peace reigns as long as everyone holds the line.
The exhibition explores the effects, during and enduring, of conflict from the parallel perspectives of two people from opposite hemispheres and seemingly disparate backgrounds, who share the experience of growing up in countries once subject to the violence of war and occupation by external forces. It asks questions about the physical and imaginary boundaries drawn through and around the places and people who remain when war ends.
From his experience of growing up in Northern Ireland, Martin Seeds’ practice investigates the conflicting experiences of identity, history, and culture. Working with photography and sculpture, he reconsiders historical events alongside current issues in the province to examine the consequences of conflict. Personal narratives, the relationship to place, politics, and trauma are themes that recur and interconnect in his work.
Shumba Felix was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. A multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses drawing, painting, video, text and installation. In his work Shumba is preoccupied with deconstructing spaces (real or imagined) which he describes as Fold Fields Space (FFS). These are sites generally characterised and haunted by trauma, tension, restraint, ecological damage and the use of the military as an apparatus of control. Central to his work is the constant questioning: what is at stake, what is hidden, and what trumps the possibility of freedom.
