Watch Now: Alberta Whittle, 'RESET' (2020)
To celebrate Alberta Whittle representing Scotland at the Venice Biennale, Frieze revisits the artist’s commission for the 2020 Frieze Artist Award
To celebrate Alberta Whittle representing Scotland at the Venice Biennale, Frieze revisits the artist’s commission for the 2020 Frieze Artist Award
RESET (2020) is a new moving-image work by Alberta Whittle, this year’s recipient of the annual Frieze Artist Award, co-produced and co-commissioned by Forma and Frieze. This is the second year the Award has focussed on the medium of film.
Filmed across Barbados, South Africa and the United Kingdom, RESET is informed by the writings of queer theorist, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, interweaving gothic imagery, fears of contagion, xenophobia and the ensuing moral panic that often follows such anxieties. Exploring timely questions relating to personal healing and the cultivation of hope in hostile environments, such as the present global pandemic or colonialism, this urgent political film strikes the balance between grief and reflection, empathy and desire.
Alberta Whittle will represent Scotland at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2022, with an exhibition of new work at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello. Presented by Scotland + Venice, a partnership between Creative Scotland, British Council Scotland, National Galleries Scotland, Architecture & Design Scotland and the Scottish Government.
