MY PLACE IN BETWEEN Multimedia Installation 2008

My Place in Between is a collaborative work between Alys Williams and Lebanese artist Nathalie Harb.  The project evolved in two stages:

• Stage One in London with an exhibition commissioned by The ICA  in July 2008.
• Stage Two in Beirut with an exhibition at The Hangar of UMAM D&R in November 2008.

The piece creates a tale of these two cities, communicating an uneasiness with the concept of home and its fragility and exploring the world of memory. A storage space is created in which packed boxes and furniture have been left, either forgotten or ready to be moved, by a central character. In both scenarios, the space represents a point of departure. The viewer is invited to wander and investigate the space from within which a narrative unravels, presenting an unusual portrait of a woman.

Memories and clues to past events are expressed through objects, videos, models and texts in this compact space. The protagonist is created by overlapping autobiographical references from both artists' lives and combining them across a single timeline. This process generates a multifaceted narrative, raising questions on the concept of presence and absence, duality and translocation.

My Place in Between is a unique piece of work, which explores the potential of blurring boundaries between artistic disciplines, cultures and cities.  The work proposes a way of working with Installation as a moveable, evolving entity, exploring new possibilities of collaboration and offering an alternative way of creating and reading narrative.