Angelica Mesiti explores silence in new video work at Anna Schwartz Gallery

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Angelica Mesiti explores silence in new video work at Anna Schwartz Gallery

By Andrew Taylor

Angelica Mesiti's choir performs Serenade to Music with emotion and energy, yet not a word passes their lips.

Instead, the group of Swedish students sing the lyrics with their hands, using a silent but expressive language.

Clapping: Angelica Mesiti with her video artwork The Colour of Saying at Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Clapping: Angelica Mesiti with her video artwork The Colour of Saying at Anna Schwartz Gallery.Credit: Edwina Pickles

"I thought it was very interesting this song was a celebration of the idea of music and at the same time a lament at the inability to hear a certain kind of music," Mesiti says. "I thought that was an interesting tension to explore in a silent language."

The sign language choir is one of three acts in Mesiti's latest video work The Colour of Saying, which will be exhibited at Anna Schwartz Gallery from April 17.

Gesture: A Swedish sign language choir sings Serenade to Music in Angelica Mesiti's The Colour of Saying.

Gesture: A Swedish sign language choir sings Serenade to Music in Angelica Mesiti's The Colour of Saying.Credit: Angelica Mesiti

Later, an elderly man and woman, both former dancers, perform a pas de deux from the ballet Swan Lake, without music, using only their hands.

Mesiti says the duo use a form of choreographic shorthand to act out the piece – a common method employed by dancers to conserve energy and avoid injury.

"In the sign language choir and the dancers it's accessing these alternative methods of imparting an idea but within a body [where] the normal method is not possible," she says.

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The third part of Mesiti's exploration of gestural language is anything but quiet as two young men create a percussive racket by clapping their hands.

Shorthand: Mesiti's The Colour of Saying also features two dancers performing Swan Lake.

Shorthand: Mesiti's The Colour of Saying also features two dancers performing Swan Lake.Credit: Angelica Mesiti

The Colour of Saying arose out of a commission from the Lilith Performance Studio, based in the Swedish city of Malmo, to create a live performance that explored how people speak and convey meaning with their hands.

One of Australia's most acclaimed video artists, Mesiti says the work relates to her previous work The Calling, which featured whistled language.

"It feels like I'm still working within the realm of performance and embodied performance," she says. "And working with people whose activities might not be considered performance in a traditional sense but framing it and staging it within a context that lets us think about it as performance."

Mesiti's In the Ear of the Tyrant, featuring a woman singing a traditional mourning song in a Sicilian cave, was shown at last year's Biennale of Sydney, while her Citizens Band won the Art Gallery of NSW's Anne Landa Award in 2013.

That video also won the praise of the Herald's art critic John McDonald – no fan of video art.

"Her 21-minute video, Citizens Band, is a cut above everything else in the show," he wrote. "It owes much of its appeal to a very simple structure that features four unusual musical performances, one after another, in the manner of an intimate concert."

Mesiti, who splits her time between Paris and Sydney, edits each work but engages a cinematographer to shoot footage. Her videos are technically accomplished and beautiful to watch.

"I like the way the language of cinema is very easily and clearly understood by everyone," she says. "You don't need any kind art education to understand the syntax and grammar of cinema.

"I kind of like this language is so familiar and perhaps allows access into the work in a very simple way."

Mesiti's upcoming projects include a work for Carriageworks' 24 Frames Per Second that depicts a French-Algerian dancer performing a dance involving her hair and another work for Doug Aitken's Station to Station: A 30 Day Happening at London's Barbican in June.

Mesiti says the dancer shows the erotic and sensual nature of hair, particularly in cultures where a veil is worn.

"I couldn't help seeing how this north African dance has echoes in Beyonce video clips," she says.

Angelica Mesiti's The Colour of Saying is at Anna Schwartz Gallery from April 17 to June 13.

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