Catalogue > At random

Emmett Walsh

The Pathfinder: Prospect

Vidéo | hdv | couleur | 13:11 | Irlande, USA | 2011

`The Pathfinder: Prospect`, begins with the painted portrait of a 19th century politician and pioneer, John C. Frémont, housed in the Brooklyn museum, New York. From this figure the camera begins to build curious panning views of staged historical dwellings and stuffy expansionist-era oil paintings, before moving on to stationary shots of the nearby Prospect Park, with its carefully allotted tracts of woodland and pasture. The pace of the footage is dictated by a recording of a local drum circle; a loose collective of neighbourhood residents who come together each week, with no clear leader, and improvise African and Caribbean drum rhythms. A crescendo is reached through fragmented visions of paths and roads, dissected by painted lines and cracked patterns. A series of subtitles appear throughout the video, in which a loose conversation is recounted. A narrator struggles to clarify it`s own position in remembering a past journey to distant islands, when utopian ideals were discussed and only half formulated. Throughout `The Pathfinder: Prospect`, the uneasy collision between 19th and 20th century urban planning, the displacement of migrant communities, and idealised visions of pastoral equilibrium are melded together through the intuitive, pulsing efforts of the drum circle.

Emmett Walsh is an artist and writer from the UK, currently based in Los Angeles. His work spans sculpture, writing, video, photography, and print. He graduated from the MFA program at the Glasgow School of Art in 2008.