The Royal West of England Academy 2028 Venice Biennale Project
* Below you'll find a link to see the space available to RWA in the ECC at Palazzo Mora in Cannaregio, Venice.
I'm Terry Flaxton RWA, FRPS and from the Autumn of last year and the first four months of this year I managed to get a joint installation on at the Venice Biennale at the European Cultural Centre on Strada Nova in Venice for 6 months from May until November 2026 with a media artists group that I run called United Media Artists (links below and descriptions of the places and the ideas involved). I began as a painter and went to Wimbledon School of Art then after a 4 year gap then to the University of East London for a degree.
I'm now hoping to form a small group of active RWA artists that want to enable the whole of the RWA to have the possibility of getting their work into a group exhibition of six months in 2028. At the outset, let's be aware that no other Arts organisation in the UK has achieved what we're proposing to do. To achieve our goal - to put on a joint RWA Academicians exhibition during the 2028 Venice Biennale of Art, we're going to have to look at our position with regard a set of factors in creating a high level exhibition of one of the RA's of the British Isles. So let's first look where the sits RWA in the definition of 'Royal Academies'. Not all of the Academies share the same official title. While they are colloquially referred to as "Royal Academies," each national and regional institution has a distinct, proper name that designates its specific location and discipline - these are:
Attitudes
The Venice Biennale is a pyramid of power and finance and one of the basic elements to address is one's own attitude as an artist, specifically with regard how exhibition costs function. All artists expect a gallery that gives you, the highly regarded RWA artist, a show to then sell your work at a profit and depending on what relations you have with that gallery you will be offered a percentage of those sales realised by the gallery. Depending on a set of factors (the amount of sales, the length of run of the exhibition, whether VAT is charged or as with contemporary musicians, you may also pay for hotels, accommodation and food for gallery staff - and sometimes VAT on top) you will then have a greater or lesser percentage of the value of your art at the point of sale - anything from 30% to 60% - but with the higher percentage levels, that's when those extra factors kick in to effectively turn 60%, at best, into 50%.
I'm now hoping to form a small group of active RWA artists that want to enable the whole of the RWA to have the possibility of getting their work into a group exhibition of six months in 2028. At the outset, let's be aware that no other Arts organisation in the UK has achieved what we're proposing to do. To achieve our goal - to put on a joint RWA Academicians exhibition during the 2028 Venice Biennale of Art, we're going to have to look at our position with regard a set of factors in creating a high level exhibition of one of the RA's of the British Isles. So let's first look where the sits RWA in the definition of 'Royal Academies'. Not all of the Academies share the same official title. While they are colloquially referred to as "Royal Academies," each national and regional institution has a distinct, proper name that designates its specific location and discipline - these are:
- The Royal Academy of Arts (RA): Located in London, it is simply known as "The Royal Academy."
- The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA): Located in Edinburgh.
- The Royal West of England Academy (RWA): Based in Bristol.
- The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA): Located in Dublin, Ireland.
- The Royal Cambrian Academy (RCA): Located in Conwy, Wales.
Attitudes
The Venice Biennale is a pyramid of power and finance and one of the basic elements to address is one's own attitude as an artist, specifically with regard how exhibition costs function. All artists expect a gallery that gives you, the highly regarded RWA artist, a show to then sell your work at a profit and depending on what relations you have with that gallery you will be offered a percentage of those sales realised by the gallery. Depending on a set of factors (the amount of sales, the length of run of the exhibition, whether VAT is charged or as with contemporary musicians, you may also pay for hotels, accommodation and food for gallery staff - and sometimes VAT on top) you will then have a greater or lesser percentage of the value of your art at the point of sale - anything from 30% to 60% - but with the higher percentage levels, that's when those extra factors kick in to effectively turn 60%, at best, into 50%.
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The exhibition I've negotiated with the The European Cultural Centre is a six month exhibition from early May to late November 2028 (a key player outside of the Venice Biennale and collateral events banner*). So imagine a solo show in London, you can purchase space near the RA during the summer show, which could cost you between £10,000 to £20,000 a week depending on how much space you take up and how long during the day you're open. And that is without all the costs associated with shipping and installing the work (please do let me know if there are better offers out there). So if you've had a show where you've only paid by percentage below 50% for a show - think yourself lucky.
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* Venice Biennale admission costs 25000 Euros plus VAT even before you put in the costs of an exhibition - that 30k allows you to use their graphic banner. Collateral events are the 6 Venice events, (Art, Movies, Architecture etc) plus associated behaviours like the Arsenale and a variety of smaller events and spaces in Venice during the Venice Biennale proper. To be clear the ECC runs alongside the Biennale, though this year the work I put on had a Biennale Jury 'walk through' (and frankly the jury resigned at one point because of both Israel and the Australian selection committee disallowed an aboriginal artist after they'd been selected - ergo there's always an issue in Venice. So the thorny issue of 'was my work in or not in the Biennale' is a non-issue because the exhibition takes place in Venice during the Biennale. However if artists feel this is an issue - we can elect to pursue the extra E30k.
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The environment I've negotiated for is within the The European Cultural Centre which has two Palazzo's in Venice, the Palazzo Mora and the Palazzo Bembo. Originally the ECC was a Dutch initiative but now its centre is in Italy with other locations in a variety of countries. For years I've been going to these exhibitions in Venice - and it's my opinion that the best way to see the biennale is by wandering around Venice and finding real gems of art that never get reported - and in fact I saw what I believe was the best piece of work I've seen at the Biennale since going for many years - in the ECC's Palazzo Mora - and on that basis this year - and right now - I negotiated a group show of United Media Artists work called Wilderness, exhibiting in the ECC's Palazzo Mora.
Organising a group show of RWA artists begins with a set of questions:
- How much will a 6 month exhibition cost
- How will the exhibition be paid for
- How will we choose which RWA artists are selected to show work?
- How will be achieve the install?
How much will a 6 month exhibition cost?
At the ECC, space is allocated in a series of ballrooms, halls and room spaces within their several Palazzo's and I will argue that if we Academicians go for a group exhibition it should be in the Palazzo Mora as it is on Strada Nova in Cannaregio and in 2024 had a footfall of 400,000 visitors - and this year numbers are already exceeding that and 500,000 is possible by November. The Palazzo Bembo is near the Rialto Bridge and contrary to expectation gets a lower footfall because tourists come and go across the Rialto and don't take that important turn to go to Palazzo Bembo. Here's a 3D app link that can show you the space that's available in Palazzo Mora - note that you arrive half way along the room so it's double the size you initially see - so click and drag the room to see the other end. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=LxnAjH19HfT&ss=520&sr=-2.9,1.16.
To the right there's a gallery of views of the proposed space which also includes the space behind the central wall at the back of the gallery. Plus a view of the entrance via a grand staircase.
At the ECC, space is allocated in a series of ballrooms, halls and room spaces within their several Palazzo's and I will argue that if we Academicians go for a group exhibition it should be in the Palazzo Mora as it is on Strada Nova in Cannaregio and in 2024 had a footfall of 400,000 visitors - and this year numbers are already exceeding that and 500,000 is possible by November. The Palazzo Bembo is near the Rialto Bridge and contrary to expectation gets a lower footfall because tourists come and go across the Rialto and don't take that important turn to go to Palazzo Bembo. Here's a 3D app link that can show you the space that's available in Palazzo Mora - note that you arrive half way along the room so it's double the size you initially see - so click and drag the room to see the other end. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=LxnAjH19HfT&ss=520&sr=-2.9,1.16.
To the right there's a gallery of views of the proposed space which also includes the space behind the central wall at the back of the gallery. Plus a view of the entrance via a grand staircase.
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We're already ahead
Here's where I've come to, so far with regard Rachele De Steffano the Senior Curator of the ECC - and remember the artworks shown must fit with the years theme (this year was Confluences - which a bright artist can connect their forthcoming work with). The next theme will be announced early in 2027. (Remember my comments on the costs of exhibitions when reading this) as we've already got down to the bones of the issue. Here's Rachele's response to my bargaining. Regarding a potential collaboration with the Royal West of England Academy we are genuinely interested and would be glad to explore the possibility of presenting a selection of works by RWA Academicians at one of our palazzos. Within a dedicated room, it is possible to include more than one artist as part of a curated project, and it is also possible to dedicate a room at the first floor. The participation fee for this type of space is approximately €1,900 per square metre (with a minimum of €19,000). A space of around 50 sqm on the first floor of Palazzo Mora would therefore require approximately €95,000. The large central room you mentioned, Room 201 on the second floor, is approx. 140 sqm, the amount required would be 266.000 Euro, but we can offer the entire space at 170.000 Euro. |
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This last bit highlighted in bold is about the relationship I have with the ECC because so far in bringing exhibitions there - I have been good for my word. That room (and it doesn't have to be so large), is 140 Square meters and obviously there are walls where you can hang 2D artworks (When thinking about space obviously large scale sculpture can be fit in as the ceilings are high in most palazzo's depending what floor you're on) - but also if we require false walls at 90 degrees to the main walls (and perhaps only on one long wall which enables a passage through where sculptural pieces can go). Also remember that 170,000 Euros is roughly £145,000 - for six months and 140 square meters - think of a lower ceiling and smaller version of the main RWA gallery.
In fact I've just renegotiated the price and RWA would at this time pay 160,000 Euros which is roughly £137,000 *Plus the European Cultural Commission has offered occasional screening facilities for video at Palazzo Michael which is a 4 minute walk from Palazzo Mora. This means if there were an RWA documentary we could show it repeatedly here |
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How will the exhibition be paid for?
I'm happy to lead bids (or not) and approach a variety of funders and we'll have to go on a drive to raise funds.
Let's imagine we wish to take the 140 metre space at 160,000 Euro's we need to add a sum to ship the work to Venice (and remember when in Venice after the work arrives by vehicle it them has to take a boat to the Palazzo) so here I'll add 30,000 Euro as shipping, accommodation and food in transit and in Venice will be requisite. We can debate costs - I'm giving these as starting points. To be clear the sum paid to the ECC includes all thre labour and materials for the hang, the building of false walls etc - we have to ship to them and return the work at the end.
So E190,000 euros is circa £162,500. I expect and am hoping to renegotiate the figures once more and aim for a sum more like £142,000 to pull this off. To make the Arts Council, the British council, the Gulbenkian, Paul Hamlyn or any other arts funders (the University Sector with a research aspect) to make them keen enough to support us to the tune of 100k we'd need to find 50k of private or business money. The extra money added also has to include shipping, accommodation and food.
When I did this last year there was one central fact about this - we have to approach raising money passionately and we need to push, push and push again to get this over the line - but it is possible. Personally I relish the possibility of making this happen.
Apart from all the obvious routes to raise money, one proposition for raising a portion of the sum is approaching both BBC2 or Channel 4 to create a documentary on how the RWA achieved getting a show on in Venice (where the production company would give part of the fee to the RWA as a contribution - maybe 25k - it's got a natural end goal thrust via a set of stages (which all documentaries require) and I have contacts in both the BBC and Channel 4 Arts to investigate which production company we could approach. Alternatively the RWA could start a production company to keep all the fee. I say this on the basis that in my time Ive directed 5 docs on British and European Video art, and a set of documentaries for both BBC and Channel 4 - though I would not propose myself for this role but instead a director and producer could be hired in (a friend has directed a variety of BBC Arena Arts Docs).
How will we choose which RWA artists are selected to show work?
This is not easy as someone's nose will be put out of joint but is entirely possible to design a way to make this happen. So here's a route to discuss:
Rachele Stefano herself suggested the following: Regarding the selection process, this is an internal decision on your side. Perhaps you could curate it together with senior members, run an open call to your members, and collectively decide on the best projects, while the work of other members could be featured through documentation, such as catalogues or video. This is just an initial idea, and I'm very happy to go through all the steps with you and discuss the possibilities together. If you'd like our input or would like us involved in the process in any form, please let us know.
I'm happy to lead bids (or not) and approach a variety of funders and we'll have to go on a drive to raise funds.
Let's imagine we wish to take the 140 metre space at 160,000 Euro's we need to add a sum to ship the work to Venice (and remember when in Venice after the work arrives by vehicle it them has to take a boat to the Palazzo) so here I'll add 30,000 Euro as shipping, accommodation and food in transit and in Venice will be requisite. We can debate costs - I'm giving these as starting points. To be clear the sum paid to the ECC includes all thre labour and materials for the hang, the building of false walls etc - we have to ship to them and return the work at the end.
So E190,000 euros is circa £162,500. I expect and am hoping to renegotiate the figures once more and aim for a sum more like £142,000 to pull this off. To make the Arts Council, the British council, the Gulbenkian, Paul Hamlyn or any other arts funders (the University Sector with a research aspect) to make them keen enough to support us to the tune of 100k we'd need to find 50k of private or business money. The extra money added also has to include shipping, accommodation and food.
When I did this last year there was one central fact about this - we have to approach raising money passionately and we need to push, push and push again to get this over the line - but it is possible. Personally I relish the possibility of making this happen.
Apart from all the obvious routes to raise money, one proposition for raising a portion of the sum is approaching both BBC2 or Channel 4 to create a documentary on how the RWA achieved getting a show on in Venice (where the production company would give part of the fee to the RWA as a contribution - maybe 25k - it's got a natural end goal thrust via a set of stages (which all documentaries require) and I have contacts in both the BBC and Channel 4 Arts to investigate which production company we could approach. Alternatively the RWA could start a production company to keep all the fee. I say this on the basis that in my time Ive directed 5 docs on British and European Video art, and a set of documentaries for both BBC and Channel 4 - though I would not propose myself for this role but instead a director and producer could be hired in (a friend has directed a variety of BBC Arena Arts Docs).
How will we choose which RWA artists are selected to show work?
This is not easy as someone's nose will be put out of joint but is entirely possible to design a way to make this happen. So here's a route to discuss:
- First we need establish the 2028 theme.
- Then we must agree the size of space we require after a debate about how much art we will show
- Then we must agree the largest size of 2D and 3D work Academicians can apply to enter - and we could also say to people "Small is beautiful". For instance in exhibition the largest scale work I've shown is 60 feet long by 14 feet high - but at the moment I am now choosing to show work on three 7 inch frames (21 inches in length). I shall compare the response to size, but I suspect if the work is potent, size is not the most compelling issue.
- Then we must agree what our limits of acceptance of artworks is based on: less equals more? Or more equals more?
- Then we must choose a jury of selectors
- Then we must solicit work from Academicians
- Then we must choose with a mind to the future - This last could be a way of assuring those not included that they will be - as a requisite - top of the list for the next Biennale Show.
Rachele Stefano herself suggested the following: Regarding the selection process, this is an internal decision on your side. Perhaps you could curate it together with senior members, run an open call to your members, and collectively decide on the best projects, while the work of other members could be featured through documentation, such as catalogues or video. This is just an initial idea, and I'm very happy to go through all the steps with you and discuss the possibilities together. If you'd like our input or would like us involved in the process in any form, please let us know.
How will we achieve the install?
I have experience of shipping artists works to Venice. Frankly with the work coming from Bristol probably the cheapest way is to drive a vehicle direct from Bristol to Venice and then rent a boat after getting the work there across the bridge (I have contacts for boats) - and then reverse that at the end of the six months. I'd be happy to do that drive if someone would accompany me on the drive.
The curator at the ECC will happily join in on the hang - but we can advance a plan for consultation when we've agreed the layout (a larg room can have false walls built in or not). Our representatives have to be in Venice for a week before the opening to ensure the quality of the install - but the ECC are pretty amazing and match the RWA's team in my judgement.
Everything is naturally up for debate and I believe we need a strong team of a minimum of 5 to take up a set of initiatives to gather money. Everything from the British Council to corporate finance and also jumble sales - all of which should spread the news that the RWA is ambitious and connected to community. On that note I have a good relationship to the community in Cannaregio - a working community - and we'd do well to include them in our adventure (the ECC is on Strada Nova - New Street in Cannaregio). Heres a portrait project I shot in 2008 which utilised ideas around early long exposure times in photography and 19th century portraiture where the subject stood near or carried implements to describe what they did in life: Portraits of Cannaregio - This was shown in Cannaregio using a shop window with tracing paper across it to catch the image (I usually show this at 18 feet x 9 feet when possible so that the audience sees a life size version of people from other cultures) and many local people came to the premier to stand on the nearby bridge to see themselves (and other portrait projects including Glastonbury) where much prosecco and parmigiano was imbibed.
I have experience of shipping artists works to Venice. Frankly with the work coming from Bristol probably the cheapest way is to drive a vehicle direct from Bristol to Venice and then rent a boat after getting the work there across the bridge (I have contacts for boats) - and then reverse that at the end of the six months. I'd be happy to do that drive if someone would accompany me on the drive.
The curator at the ECC will happily join in on the hang - but we can advance a plan for consultation when we've agreed the layout (a larg room can have false walls built in or not). Our representatives have to be in Venice for a week before the opening to ensure the quality of the install - but the ECC are pretty amazing and match the RWA's team in my judgement.
Everything is naturally up for debate and I believe we need a strong team of a minimum of 5 to take up a set of initiatives to gather money. Everything from the British Council to corporate finance and also jumble sales - all of which should spread the news that the RWA is ambitious and connected to community. On that note I have a good relationship to the community in Cannaregio - a working community - and we'd do well to include them in our adventure (the ECC is on Strada Nova - New Street in Cannaregio). Heres a portrait project I shot in 2008 which utilised ideas around early long exposure times in photography and 19th century portraiture where the subject stood near or carried implements to describe what they did in life: Portraits of Cannaregio - This was shown in Cannaregio using a shop window with tracing paper across it to catch the image (I usually show this at 18 feet x 9 feet when possible so that the audience sees a life size version of people from other cultures) and many local people came to the premier to stand on the nearby bridge to see themselves (and other portrait projects including Glastonbury) where much prosecco and parmigiano was imbibed.
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2025 Tachyon Field Disorder is Part of Entangled: The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum Entanglement - this has 14 parts within 4 sections which is concerned with the movement from the Analogue era through the Digital and Quantum to the period of emergent theories of the tachyonic era. From the third collection of Entangled works: Entangled Part III: The Tachyon Field - which are a collection of three pieces which deals with the transition from the Quantum era through to the Tachyon state and what three stages are necessary to stabilise space/time. What that means is that there are three different kinds of particles in the Universe: Those that travel slower than the speed of light, those that travel at the speed of light and those that travel faster than the speed of light. The Tachyon is the only proposed particle that can go faster than the speed of light. These three works seek to visualise and so create a visual language for those three stages which are Tachyon Field Disorder, Tachyon Calibration, Tachyon Field Integrity.
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Tachyon Field Disorder
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In 2000 I’d begun experiments to take the screen off the wall which later became part of my AHRC fellowship - this strategy is now widely practiced to leave behind 'the proscenium arch'. I set myself the research problem with this installation of proving how increased resolution also increased engagement times - but by how long? I set up a one hour standard definition version (720 pixels x 576 pixels) and recorded times spent by audience members - then exposed the audience to an HD version (1920 x 1080) and the result was approximately 4 times the resolution equated to twice the engagement - this was simply the square law in action. All of the descriptions necessary are in this ‘making of’. Installation Loop 60 minutes.
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The Making of "In Other People's Skins"
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I devised the work In Re Ansel Adams to try to reveal the impact of a moving image when compared to a still image that was a past icon - both as an homage and as research. I decided I'd travel to Yosemite and take one of the new 4k cameras which few had operated and then zoom into the Bridal Veil falls six miles away using a 24mm to 294mm Anginieux movie lens - hold my breath such that on arrival back in post production I could zoom in digitally into the best detail before the image broke down into pixels - then zoom back digitally until the moment when on location I released my breath and then optically zoom back the extra 6 miles to finally resolve the shot into Ansel Adams famous photograph of Tunnel View - which also took in El Capitan and bleed the colour to black and white. In my imagination I knew that would work - then 5000 pounds later I could prove that it would. That became an AHRC 90 second easy win with government ministers.
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In Re Ansel Adams
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43 years ago in 1983 I was asked by Chiatt Day Advertising in Los Angeles to cover the making of ‘1984’ for Apple Computers. This commercial was to be directed by Ridley Scott to introduce the Macintosh to the world. Costing around $1.5 million dollars, ‘1984’ was to make advertising history by being shown only once in the middle of that years Superbowl – a highly prestigious slot – never before had an advert been only shown once. The message of the whole enterprise was: ‘If you miss this, then you’re going to be at a disadvantage’. This sentiment in itself set the tone for the definition of the self at the end of the 20th century, when the self was to be defined by its likes and its dislikes. Prisoners as a work derived from the footage shot during the making of the commercial deals with the problem of ideology, the potential manipulation of meaning and the hotness or coldness of the medium as expressed by McLuhan as well as several other issues. I called this work Prisoners because I was interested in the problem of having a fixed ideology, of having a fixed set of ideas in relation to the world. To use a metaphor: it seemed to me that having sun glasses was useful whilst in the sun, but useless in the middle of the night. So therefore those people depicted in my work, the capitalists, the neo-Nazis, Thatcherites, communists, corporatists and us the anarchists video crew, were all held Prisoner by our own set of beliefs.
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Prisoners 1983 - 1984 Initially Cinematographer, then Creator
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Releases & Exhibitions 2025
ICELAND - Listasafn Árnesinga Art Museum, Hveragerði, March/April 2025
Teotihuacán is a short work referencing the Mexican archeological site and is derived from Barrier Reef which is a meditation on how we do not take care of our planet… We all know we should give more - the oceans are the life blood of the planet - they cover most of the surface of the earth - and the most delicate part of the oceans and the seas are the reefs where the most beautifully coloured creatures on the planet live amongst the sculptural formations of coral - they are an expression of beauty and themselves an emblem of the stability of the ecosphere that we live within - but these are now most at risk. These images are composed of water. United Kingdom:Testing to Destruction
RWA Open EXHIBITION Nov 2024/Jan 2025 This is a combined artwork, a religious and scientific thought experiment. To the right, the video "Neon Barcode Jesus in a Barcode World" which will be exhibited as part of the installation on the Bondai mac. The video, Barcode Jesus in a Material World is a 2017 work by Terry Flaxton, a piece of video art which commented on consumerism. Recently I realised, having shot the Ridley Scott Making of 1984 for Apple, that I had a unique in on where the digital realm has gone ocver the years. So I realised that an installation comprised of Barcode Jesus displayed on an original Bondai Snow White iMac which has been unused for twenty years, was a unique way to reveal some issues. The mac will be positioned on a four foot high plinth and then turned on to run the video for 90 days non-stop. So the work is reborn as Testing to Destruction which will examine if yesterdays technology can stand the pace of today's consumerism. Should the computer ‘fail’ before the end of the exhibition, this is then an attempt to burn in an after image of Barcode Jesus into the iMac, similar to that of the Turin Shroud. Should the work complete the exhibition then it will go on to other exhibitions until it produces the after image or simply self-destructs. |
Exhibitions & Online Releases 2026
- UK Royal West of England 173rd Annual Open, September 12, 2026, to January 3, 2027 - Italy, Venice Biennale, Palazzo Mora, ECC Exhibition, United Media Artists (UMA), Wilderness Installation, Barrier Reef & Species, May to November, 2026 - Italy, Venice, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, UMA REVEAL - Anima Mundi, Visions, Nova, The Golden Apples of the Sun, July 2026, (UMA), - Italy, Venice, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, UMA REVEAL - Anima Mundi, consciousness, Astrolabe, June 2026, (UMA) - Italy, Venice, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, UMA REVEAL - Anima Mundi, Rituals, May 2026, (UMA) The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, - Italy, Venice, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Anima Mundi, Visions, May, June, July 2026, Charlotte Humpston and Terry Flaxton Collaborative Works Experiments in Oil Painting & Digital Abstraction - Canada Montreal, La Nuit Blanche, Le Cinoche Video - Italy, Rome Experimental, Alchemical Flow, Species February 2026 - Sedition International Online Release, Entangled: 4th Collection Faster Than Light, Overself, Coming to Rest, January 2026 
Go here for a short video which describes how Resting to Destruction was reformulated into Resurection: For Jean Cocteau
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Many of my works from 2006 onwards are
published on Sedition Art 
I started working with Sedition Art around 2015 when
I got a call and was asked might I want to become a curated artist on that platform. By now, 2024 I'm currently the ninth most collected artist on the platform out of around 2000 artists. Some of whom are very well known. So at this URL you can find around 70 works. Please click the picture or this link Sedition Art and you'll see the extent of my current phase of work. Equally Long Form Artworks are an important area for me as few video artists make long form work. There's a second free artwork free on Sedition Art called Diamond Beings Forming over the Takamina Desert which can be obtained here on SeditionArt - use code: Takamina Beneath, there are a several shorts from before 2015.
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VENICE BIENNALE ANIMA MUNDI EXHIBITION 2024 - A Sad and Divine Comedy 2024 Comprising of Barrier Reef and Blue Revelation: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Barrier Reef is a meditation on how we do not take care of our planet… We all know we should give more - the oceans are the life blood of the planet - they cover most of the surface of the earth - and the most delicate part of the oceans and the seas are the reefs where the most beautifully coloured creatures on the planet live amongst the sculptural formations of coral - they are an expression of beauty and themselves an emblem of the stability of the ecosphere that we live within - but these are now most at risk. These images are composed of water. Blue Revelation: Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a meditation on the centre of our planet which sits in the very deepest part of both the earth and within the human heart. It is a live being which dispassionately provides the heart beat and tempo for everything that lives. As the images reveal the shape and nature of the blue planet when looked at from beneath - slowly they unfold to reveal the earths exterior - which is in deep trouble. These images are composed of rock. |
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The following three works, Hearts of Oak, Once Upon a Time in Venice (Un Tempo Una Volta) & Mexico Landscapes of the Heart were released by Sedition to celebrate the Venice Biennale 2024 and were showcased at the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Venice during Anima Mundi in March, April, May and June 2024 and a various other locations in Venice during the Biennale.
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SEDITION RELEASE - 5th April 2024 - 1 Edition Remaining - Artwork Description From Sedition: Hearts of Oak marries the digital and analog worlds through the lens of traditional English crafts. Set against the backdrop of Somerset, England, Hearts of Oak showcases individuals engaged in age-old practices such as weaving, cheese making, sculpting and rope making to celebrate the tangible value of handmade items in today's digital age. Inspired by the poem Leisure by W.H. Davies and a verse from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold, Hearts of Oak ponders the essence of a life well-lived and the quiet wisdom found in traditional craftsmanship. As one of the pieces in Terry Flaxton's trio of works released around the Venice Biennale, Hearts of Oak offers a grounding perspective on the digital transformation of our lives through the prism of the enduring nature of analog traditions.
Soundtrack: A recording of Emily Burridge's Cello improvisations remixed and arranged by Terry Flaxton. Published 2024, 4K Video, Duration 11:28 |
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SEDITION RELEASE - 4th April 2024 - Sold Out - Artwork Description From Sedition:
Once Upon a Time in Venice (Un Tempo Una Volta). This Venetian phrase, when translated into English, is emblematic of the classic opening of European fairy tales and sets the stage for an exploration that deepens the conventional Venetian experience. Eschewing water imagery - yet evoking the feeling of water - Flaxton employs reflection and refraction to gradually transition from clear images to kaleidoscopic images and generates visions of Venice, to then push the boundaries between reality and fantasy to reveal what is behind Venice's 4th Wall. The piece begins with a journey beneath Venice's bridges, where coloured silk cascades over the camera lens, creating brief views into another realm. This artwork creates a deeper dive into what Venice symbolizes and challenges the viewer to look beyond the scenic to discover Venice’s essence, Soundtrack from a piece by Alan Lethbridge, rearranged by Terry Flaxton. Published 2024, 4K Video, Duration 13:51 Zagorsk 1992 4 minutes
It's 1991 and I've been to Russia a few times now - but our director goes down and I'm left to make up the footage he's missing. We've been near the border of Ukraine and Moldavia - and then back up to Leningrad/St Petersburg and Moscow. We have time spare so we go visit a KGB occupied Cathedral where the keep all the notes on 'the disappeared' which we've seen plenty of evidence of in the forests as townspeople had insisted we come see the unmarked massed graves of Jewish people... Meanwhile, the Orthodox church is noticeably on the rise - and we weren't yet to know it would become Nationalist - but the beauty of some of the places we went into - and this one which was stark and unadorned asked for a representation of all the above... |
Zargorsk 1992
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SEDITION RELEASE - 3rd April 2024 - 2 Editions Remaining - Artwork Description From Sedition: Mexico: Landscape of the Heart delves into the heart of Mexican culture through a blend of abstraction and representation. This palimpsest of ideas, reveals underlayers of Mexico's rich cultural heritage and the influence of iconic artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. This work is a journey into the essence of Mexico, where ancient glyphs and modern representations converge to form a profoundly dynamic and personal reflection on the country's past and present. Mexico: Landscape of the Heart, Hearts of Oak, Once Upon a Time in Venice (Un Tempo Una Volta) screen in the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Venice during Anima Mundi in Spring and Summer 2024. Published 2024, 4K Video, Duration 29:22
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