hannah whittaker

Sky Above the Scene

In a time of borders being strengthened and unions being separated, Sky Above The Scene aims to focus attention on and increase appreciation of what unites us - our coexistence under one, borderless sky. While this may be a seemingly obvious fact, it’s perhaps only when space and time are provided to meditate on this fact, that it has the chance to change how people actually perceive the world. Sky Above the Scene aims to celebrate diversity, calling into question our perceptions of other cultures and challenging the notion of them being far removed and ‘foreign’, while making us think about our own position in the world, and how we would like our own communities to be perceived.

The first phase of the project is a large scale video installation displaying an indoor sky created from globally source footage. Audiences can view the overall sky patchwork but also engage further through headphones to listen to the scenes taking place beneath each section of sky. The various scenes are different cultural events captured from around the world but with the focus on the sky as the common denominator, not dismissing the diversity but celebrating that it all happens on the same shared planet.

“A seemingly simple idea, executed so beautifully to create an extremely powerful experience.”

“The world would be a better place if more people come and saw this exhibition. A lovely celebration of our differences and similarities.”

“Thoughtful, surprising and giving us all breathing space, which we need!”

This project also aims to explore representation and documentation as art. The current footage has been gathered by myself in the position of tourist. In my limited understanding of each location I have selected the audio that will represent that culture in the context of the exhibition. To make this a project of more truthful representation and further extend my study of documentation as art I will seek to crowdsource the footage for future exhibitions. Engaging communities and organisation around the world, asking them to decide what footage, what cultural scene they would like to represent their area.

If you would like to contribute to the further development of this project please get in touch.

This project has been supported by:

Electric Medway Festival
28 Aug 2020