"Alys Williams' installation at Shunt demonstrated a highly controlled aesthetic manifested through an organic integration of found objects, video, and sound. All these elements were encompassed in a proverbial tower of Babel constructed of diverse chairs that seemed to plunge upward as a cloud of dust. I use the metaphor of Babel not just for the impression of man's creation reaching upwards towards the heavens, but also for the use of language that embodied the piece. The videos and sound depicted snippets of the collaborating artists' conversations and extrapolated memories of conversations that may have taken place whilst sitting in those very chairs. It gave the objects a meaning past their utilitarian function, and seemed to investigate notions of sedateness, comfort, leisure, dialogue and instances.
The work made good use of the vastness of Shunt, which is itself interspersed with an assortment of random seating arrangements, by containing all the elements of grunge and dirt, conversation and leisure that this dark system of arches confers. I refer back to the notion of a controlled aesthetic reflected in the choice of location, a small and intimate room, within a complex labyrinth of a space. Entering the room was a direct experience of the work, a part of the installation, and an internal response to an external context. Perhaps this use of internal and external inter-relationships made the work feel both intimate and universal without succumbing to didacticism and overly message-laden content."
On On-Site|UnScripted at Shunt Lounge April 2009. By Roberto Sánchez-Camus. London. Tuesday 21st April. 2009
"'My Place in Between' seeks out the poetry of stored objects...The reiterated metaphor is a simple but effective one. Not only memories, but elements of identity like so many sloughed-off layers of skin - reside within the objects with which you live. The installation's elements, whether videos, stills or objects, are embedded within its fictional character's belongings as motifs. Video and still images of the fictive resident reiterate the sitting/doing nothing/sleeping of connectedness to a place."
Exploring the possibilities - mundane to prurient - of a spatial cinema. By Jim Quilty.
The Daily Star. Lebanon. Friday November 21, 2008.
"It’s always a jolt to see your life reduced to a pile of boxes. A new art installation in the Hangar at UMAM in Beirut recreates exactly that startled feeling...itself might seem small and stranded in the corner of this echoey space in Ghrobeiyeh. But for anyone who has seen their life, possessions and memories shrunk to a pile of junk, the smallness will resonate."
She’s leaving home: An artwork about the furniture and fragmentation of moving house. By Alice Fordham.
NOW Lebanon. Monday November 10, 2008.
"A powerful symbol of remembrance and a gateway to the past, an archive is perhaps the thing that best embodies the many ideas explored in this installation. It retains an expanse of time and grants access to memories, cultures and past events through interaction with physical objects...In this small, dimly lit room we are faced with the inherent instability of home in contemporary society. Something unusual happens; destinations become secondary, revealing the salience of the trails we leave behind."
My Place in Between
Hex Ed Journal. By Chloe Gray ⋅ July 30, 2008