Event Details

Human Emotion Project 2009 HEP

Guildford Lane Gallery
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA


Wednesday 25-Feb-2009 - Sunday 08-Mar-2009

Human Emotion portrayed by international artists using moving images. Will be screened in many different representing countries.

Human Emotion Project HEP 2009

Synopsis:

On some levels Human Emotion Project was created for very personal reasons and as an exploratory tool, a search for the expression of emotion, human emotion.

“I do not always find it very easy to express myself out of the context of “being alone”, in “solitude” and my interactions with other humans are often misunderstood due to this lack of mutual rapport.” How is it possible for one human to fully understand another when the grounding of that understanding is based on an emotional level and there are just so many social factors at play that also affect human interaction.

HEP 2009 was born out of a voyeuristic need to observe how other artists express themselves on an emotional level and to see the effectiveness of that in a social context via physical exhibitions and an online interaction.

Very little control was enforced on the artists and the list of emotions or research on emotion was left open to them for exploration and expression. Even the duration of projects was not set to allow them a fuller measure of self expression on their individual works. Guaranteed – the emotions are not that easy to express and most of the works were not strictly labelled – so as to allow the viewer to assimilate and make their own conclusions about the emotion being expressed without defining it too rigidly.

It is my premise that emotions are possibly largely misunderstood amongst humans and hardly ever fully expressed due to whatever reason (fear, lack of knowledge, inability to express themselves, confidence, language barriers, social differences etc the list could go on).

Much like story telling – where the story is passed along and by the end of the line – it has changed from its original context to a completely different version of the intended tale – the emotions are often warped and mutate from their original “pure” state to a version which has been altered by societal involvement or other factors.

HEP project, has been an exercise on many levels – not only to get artists to attempt to express their emotions in a public environment, which takes a lot of courage; but also to show how even amongst us as a group – the very act of trying to express emotions amongst humans changes and is unreliable at best.

The initial aim of HEP was to leave it free flow – to put out the call to many different countries and allow each country and associated curator to put out the call to their artists and then see how different cultures express themselves, using the artist as a tool(as a constant). Then the HEP works would be played alongside as a comparison within each country.

The project has changed face along the way as I expected that it would.
Stronger individuals that are more prone to control make HEP what they want it to be. Who knows how HEP will change along the way, it has been an interesting ride and some very different works have emerged.

I have learned through HEP that it is not really possible to control how others feel or how they react to your own sentiments. The project will change over time and as long as emotion is expressed it will reflect its initial purposes.

‘How does one hang on to “love” in the world – how does one get close to emotional truth – in a world full of rigid control where even the expression of an emotion is often frowned upon. Humans are taught emotional control from a young age – “control your feelings”, “control yourself” and to not show what they feel in public because it could be construed of as a sign of weakness.

Well as an artist I lay myself bare – and many of the artists in HEP have done the same, I commend them for their courage and thank them all for being a part of HEP which still has many countries to traverse and express itself in.

Thank you all

Alison Williams

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Category > group exhibition

Added by alison williams on 26-Feb-2009

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