Kid Acne and Ema “UNCLEAR GROUND/ TERRAIN VAGUE” (FR)

EMA and Kid Acne: New Installation at The Pilori Museum

If you have ridden the train across the US or Europe or China you realize that just on the margins of everyday life is a wildly different view of your city, your town, your country, your life. Main Street intersects with rail lines as necessary, but this means of shipping freight and people is relegated to the backyards, tunnels, industrial backwaters of our urban-suburban sprawl. You can see the skeletons, the fibrous sinews of our man-made corpus, bared and unmasked. With time and neglect, you see how quickly the tainted soil and acidic rain colludes to reclaim the earth, swiftly filling emptiness with grasses, bushes, trees and new life; balancing our imbalance.

Still from video below by JiPÉ Corre ©

As we are wont to do, this is a side of our world where some run to discover beauty. Street Artists Kid Acne and Ema have an installation in Niort, France that sees this beauty, augments it and frames it. Having spent earlier years rummaging around these abandoned places with graff writers, the two have a romance with these steel streams and rusty tributaries that that elevate here, and collaborate with.

Kid Acne shares these photos with BSA readers from “Le 4eme Mur” in Niort, France. The title of their installation is “Unclear Ground/ Terrain Vague” and it will be on view until October 29.

Kid Acne and Ema (photo © Kid Acne)

Artists’ Statement:

‘Unclear ground/ Terrain vague is an installation currently on view in Niort (Fr) at the Pilori Museum until the 29th of October. This show is curated by Winterlong Galerie, and is a collaboration between Kid Acne and Ema.’

‘Unclear Ground takes inspiration from creating something out of nothing and seeing beauty in the mundane. From derelict factories, to abandoned wastelands and disused railways – for the past 2 decades both Ema & Kid Acne have utilised these forgotten spaces to create their art, injecting them with a splash of colour and giving them a new lease of life. This collaborative installation mixes various media including painting, silkscreening and sewn fabrics. The title refers to the uncertainty experienced in creating a new piece of work – exploring the unknown to find something new.

Combining influence from graffiti, science fiction and comic books, this exhibition invites us to explore the world around us, proving the age old saying – “seek and you shall find”. Kid Acne. Ema

Kid Acne and Ema (photo © Kid Acne)

Check out this black and white video by JiPÉ Corre (part of the installation) traveling along train tracks and walking paths, complemented by atmospheric sounds and washes. It transforms neglect into a meditation.