On 2 March 2012 Site Gallery launches Of All Possible Things, the first UK solo exhibition of Jeremiah Day. Of All Possible Things is based on the mixed and unresolved legacies of the end of the cold war. Taking as a point of departure a former Berlin wall checkpoint – famously the first site to open in 1989 – that has subsequently been turned into a Lidl superstore, Day uncovers fragments of the history of the place through a series of research interventions.
In Day’s work, site, place and historical memory are explored through photography and performance improvisation. Often focused on resistance movements and the lived experience of political struggle, in Day’s work historical incidents and sites serve as allegories, offering insight into broader philosophical and political questions. This evolving work will be materialised in Sheffield through photographs, audio recordings, performance documentation, and a new video and performance work. At times oblique, and at times explicit, the works explore the intersection of landscape and ideology, local memory and ‘world history’.
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of an artist’s book, Autonomy which documents Day’s making process. Day will present a new improvisational performance on the opening night in an effort to engage the themes of his broader project to the particular situation of Sheffield.
In The Absence of ‘Real-And-Existing Socialism’ – Film Screening of Christian Petzold’s Jerichow and talk by Jeremiah Day, Tuesday, February 28th 8pm – While the changes of 1989 are now only recorded in a narrative of triumphalism, the facts on the ground are much more equivocal. Petzold explores this ambivalent situation in his 2009 film, which will be introduced by Day and followed by an open discussion.