Maria Amidu: in the perpetual back and forth

Über uns

Maria Amidu is the third artist in iniva’s Future Collect Commission partnership programme. Future Collect is a three-year programme designed to create a dynamic new model to transform the culture of commissioning and collecting within museums. 

The exhibition centres around 26,778,780 minutes, a new paper and text-based installation and accompanying sound piece which explores the dialogue between paper and writing. Featuring over 1000 sheets of laser-etched handmade abaca fibre paper, the work evokes a sense of absence and longing, considering the nuanced meanings of the term ‘desire lines’. Once a day, at 4.00pm, air blown into the gallery will cause the prints to momentarily move outside their designated location. Once each print has settled to the floor after this activation, audiences will be asked to put them back in place. In what Maria describes as a ‘soft performative role’ public involvement becomes part of the work, provoking questions about how we relate and respond to a fragile artwork in a public gallery, through a gesture of tenderness and collective care.

Photo by Jonathan Bassett.