Meet Me in London: Fani Parali
A first look at the artist’s performance project for Frieze Sculpture 2024 exploring the dualities of human experience
A first look at the artist’s performance project for Frieze Sculpture 2024 exploring the dualities of human experience
For Frieze Sculpture 2024, London-based multidisciplinary artist Fani Parali presents two monumental sculptures and their accompanying performance, titled Aonyx and Drepan. The sculptures are comprised of two steel armatures from which the performers, or hybrid creatures, ‘sing’ to each other in The Regent's Park.
In this video, Parali describes the layered processes behind her ‘lip-sync opera’ – synthesising writing, mask-making, voice and sound to create a hauntingly otherworldly musical entity. ‘I feel that it [the recorded voice] exists before and after everything else, and the performers then become like channels, like mediums for these voices to come through them.’
Like Charon traversing the river Styx, Aonyx and Drepan represent gatekeepers guiding the viewer from one temporal zone to the next. Parali’s practice is inspired by ‘Deep Time’, the 18th-century timescale used to plot non-anthropocentric geological events. In this ecologically destructive era, the work is a portal by which to view the vastness of geological time and think of ourselves as guardians of this epoch.
About Fani Parali
Fani Parali (b. 1983 Greece) lives and works in London. She studied BA Sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts and completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools.
Parali’s practice includes sculpture, sound, performance, large-scale painting, drawing and moving image. Notable recent exhibitions include ‘Aonyx and Drepan & The Minders of the Warm’ at Southwark Park Galleries (2020). Her work is currently included in Hayward Galleries touring exhibition ‘Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood’ curated by Hetti Judah (2024).
About Frieze Sculpture
Frieze Sculpture returns to London’s Regent’s Park, 18 September – 27 October 2024. The much-celebrated public art initiative coincides with Frieze London and Frieze Masters, which take place concurrently in The Regent’s Park, 9 – 13 October. Curated by Fatoş Üstek, Frieze Sculpture has expanded for its 12th edition to include 22 leading international artists hailing from five continents, whose work will be sited throughout the park’s historic English Gardens.
With thanks to:
Cooke Latham Gallery and Southwark Park Galleries.
Mask model: Maya Wheeler-Colwell
Performance footage: Mischa Haller
Performers: Rachel Porter, Sophie Brain
Voices: Amina Abbas-Nazari, Elliot Lewis
