The Clock in Commune
Helen McCrorie
The Clock in Commune
HELEN McCRORIE
HD video, 3 screens, sound, 2016
22 mins 12 secs
The Clock in Commune is a multi-screen video installation developed by artist Helen McCrorie for The Glasite House; former worship house of the Glasite religious sect. This experimental video essay follows contemporary communities of men in Scotland, conducting ancient and still exclusive rites to mark succession: a rural pagan fire-ceremony at Hogmanay and the ordination of a Passionist priest.
The camera follows bodies enaged in ritual and making; exploring the female gaze through a sequence of public and private environments. A narrator, unfixed in gender, leads the viewer through a series of reflections on cyclical and linear time, ceremonial and domestic ritual, social bonding and film-making.
A critical text in response to the work has been published by Modern Edinburgh Film School to accompany this exhibition.
"Time is indicated here as linear, cyclical, incidental and monumental. Nested inside the Glasite Meeting House, the stage for a now extinct and marginalised class of Christian worship, the video draws in on the space’s theatre, its preserved but unsubstantiated mystical architecture. The video essay, a documentary of time ‘describing’, evidences change - of the properties of materials, of personal transformations and measured states, often ambiguous and paradoxical. She speaks about, "evidencing change in rituals and traditions that are an essentially precarious attempt to preserve continuity and succession; for institutions and ways of life to stay the same."" excerpts from essay by Alex Hetherington, MEFS
Artist
Helen McCrorie is a visual artist who has worked mainly in video since 1999, gaining an MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 2001. Initially training in painting and printmaking, she also studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Condordia in Montreal. McCrorie has lived in France, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore and currently resides in rural Scotland. She was selected for both New Contemporaries and the Collective’s New Work Scotland in 2002 and completed a major Scottish Arts Council funded moving-image public art commission, for Barrhead Arts in 2005. She has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, most recently at Suvi Lehtinen Gallery, Berlin.
The Clock in Commune, using video footage taken over a 3 year period, is her first solo show in a number of years. McCrorie is delighted to premiere this work in the Glasite House for the Edinburgh Art Festival; in Edinburgh, home of Hogmanay celebrations, the Beltane Fire festival and site of the 2009 ordination of the first Roman Catholic Woman Priest in the UK, Morag Liebert.
The artist would like to thank Edinburgh Art Festival, Alex Hetherington, Janet McCrorie, Jonathan Owen, Luke Collins, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Scottish Historic Buildings Trust and all the participants who kindly agreed to be filmed.
Visit
The Glasite House
33 Barony Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6NX
Exhibition: 11th-14th August, Thurs/Fri 10am-5pm, Sat/Sun 11am-6pm
Included in the Edinburgh Art Festival Art Late tour, Thurs 11th August
The Glasite Meeting House is a category A-listed former place of worship of the Edinburgh branch of the Glasites, a small Scottish religious sect. The building was designed by architect Alexander Black in 1835 and is currently owned by The Scottish Historic Buildings Trust.
The exhibition will be held in the former meeting hall on the ground floor, with original oak pews and pulpit and distinctive octagonal cupola.
The venue is just off Broughton Street and a 10 minute walk from Edinburgh Waverley railway station. There are several steps up to the entrance with a handrail, the listed building currently has no wheelchair ramp. A hearing loop system will be installed. Audio description available on request.
Contact
For enquiries or a press release please contact the artist helen@theclockincommune.com
For more info on the venue and access please contact Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, tel: 01312201232