Catalogue > At random

Earthwork’s screen is positioned flat on the floor, facing upwards. The visitor, looking down, gets a bird’s-eye view of a suburban landscape in which there are destroyed buildings, damaged roads, fences, and gardens. The image suggests a world that has undergone massive disruption. It is unclear whether accident, entropic forces, or warfare has caused this result. Superimposed upon Earthwork’s devastated landscape is another smaller image that presents the viewer with an alternative framing the site. We see diagrams: symbols of what might be location coordinates, suggesting an ongoing search for boundaries, and an intention. The two images appear to be attempting to “ line-up ”, but this is never achieved. The title, Earthwork, references the American Land Art movement of the 1960s; Leber and Chesworth’s videowork further explores Robert Smithson’s concept of the “ non-site ”. A non-site is an artwork situated in a gallery that metaphorically represents a remote actual site. As Smithson suggests “ the site is evading you all the while its directing you to it ”.

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are known for their distinctive installation artworks, using video, sound, architecture, and public participation. Developed through expansive research in places undergoing social change, Leber and Chesworth’s works are speculative and archaeological, responding to architectural, social, and technological settings.