Alfredo Jaar - We Wish To Inform You That We Didn't Know (2010)

Alfredo Jaar created the video installation 'We Wish To Inform You That We Didn't Know' as a response to the indifference the world had shown to the Rwandan genocide which claimed over a million lives.

He had already created twenty five different pieces on this subject from 1994 to 2000, before creating this video piece after returning to Rwanda, having been invited to create a monument in remembrance of the victims. The video 'We Wish To Inform You That We Didn't Know' was Jaars attempt to gain closure for the project.

The piece is being shown in what once was 'The Scandinavian Hotel'.


The video is quite simple, using three screens, and beginning with a BBC news report, followed by an apology from Clinton in which he comments he was 'not aware of what was happening'. The video continues by interviewing three Rwandans who managed to survive the genocide.

Jaar seems to put all of the blame in the video in Clinton, - although his apology did make him an easy target for this. However i also felt that the title 'We Wish  To Inform You We Didn't Know', summed up how i felt coming after watching the video, I really was not aware of  what happened there, and the video helped remind me that we are all responsible for our own ignorance.

Lee Mingwei - The Mending Project

Lee Mingei was lovely. 

Most of his work involves asking strangers to join him in everyday activities.

In 'The Mending Project' he invites members of the public to come in and have him fix an item of clothing, while they sit and chat. After hes finished he keeps the clothing until the end of the project, letting them build up as a reminder of the people hes met.

Lee explained to us that the project came out of living in New York at the time of the 9/11 disasters. When people were allowed back into their apartment to collect belongings, he gathered all his mending equipment. He said the city felt so broken it was the only thing he could do.

Instead of covering up the tear or fault in the clothes being bought to him, he darns them using brightly coloured threads and beads to highlight the area, that should now be associated with the moment and conversation with Lee about their lives.

Lee Mingwei was only in Liverpool for two weeks, after that he passed the project onto other 'menders'. I haven't been back to the project since he left, so i cant comment on whether the piece still works, but i find it hard to imagine that it does. I think that Lee has alot to do with how people open up in the project, he made it seem so personal, even though the set up is in fact very staged, and i think it would take someone very speical to get the same reaction from people.

Do Ho Suh - Bridging Home (2010)

Do Ho Suh is described as having his art and life split between two worlds; his home country of Korea and his adopted one of America. For me this piece summed this situation up perfectly.

To walk past the traditional Koran house on Duke Street is quite unnoticeable, (i actually had walked up and down the street so many times without noticing the little house) but as soon as you stop and look at the piece the culture clash seems amazing!

The little wooden shack couldn't be more different from the huge brick buildings either side of it, in the same way i imagine someone to feel when moving from a country like Korea to a western country like America or England. The odd angle the shack seems to of been wedged at also made me feel the artist was trying to say it never quite fits, no matter how much it can seem to blend into the background.

Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan and Alfredo Juan Aquilizan - Passage (Project Another Country) (2010)

'Passage' has been visually one of my favourite pieces commissioned for 'Tate Liverpool' as part of the 'touched' project.

Through their work the artists were trying to consider how the lives of people in Australia (where they are from), relates to the life of those in Liverpool. They use the sea as a metaphor for our longing for a better life; "how and where to do we project our dreams and longings?"

They had asked people in Liverpool to create boats using cardboard boxes (as a metaphor for moving, I think?)Presenting them across the gallery space, asking the audience to walk across the bridge through the middle and look down on the piece.

Although I loved walking around the piece, I'm not sure I would of ever understood what the artists were trying to say though the piece without also Reading about it, and think that it was slightly narrow minded for them not think that everybody in Liverpool is dreaming of moving somewhere 'better'.

Tehching Hsieh -One Year Performance (1980-1981)

Tehching Hsieh's work was about 'wasting time'. He had five different year long performances, and i recently saw this one at FACT.

Although this work was produced quite a long time ago, (he retired from art in 2000) especially in comparison to many of the pieces which have been commissioned for the first time for the Biennial, it still felt very fresh and relevant to see it for the first time.

For a whole year Hsieh punched a time card, and took a photograph of himself every hour, on the hour. The time aspect had very much the same repetitive dedication as the piece i previously saw by Sachiko Abe at the 'A Foundation'.

The result was walls lined with his photographs and time cards, making it impossible to not think about a whole year being spent in this restricted way - only ever having less than an hour sleep at a time, never being able to fully commit to anything else.

I'm not sure I could ever be so dedicated to my work. This piece did really make me question how we spend our time - What is relevant? Should our goal in live be to leave some kind of mark?

Sachiko Abe - Cut Papers (2010)

I visted the 'A Foundation' in Liverpool recently to see 'Cut Papers' by Sachiko Abe, and was completly captured by the piece.

Having already walked around the rest of the gallery, i was not expecting the piece at all.

In the Biennial Guide, Abe is quoted as saying that her work is "neither beautiful, nor meditational", but for me personally after seeing the work i could not find this discription further from the reality!

Walking into the empty factory space, and seeing Sachiko Abe sat at the top of her tower, dressed all in white and looking very much like a china doll (in complete contrast to her history, where she worked for the Self-Defence Forces in Japan), and surrounded by delicate twisted paper clippings, it was impossible for me not to think of those fairytale images from Rapunzel. She looked very much like the princess waiting to be rescued from her tower, although perhaps in this case she wanted to be rescued from herself rather than a wicked queen.

The quiet of the space, with only the snipping sound of the scissors on paper added to the hypnotic feeling the piece already gave off.

The Performance piece was complemented perfectly but the detailed repetitive ink drawings in the downstairs section of her 'tower'. I couldn't help but think of the time and monotony involved in creating these drawings.

Craig Welch. Produced in 1996

NS Harsha -Star Gazers (2010)

I went to see NS Harsha's piece 'Star Gazers' which was created for the Liverpool Biennial and is located on the top floor of the old Rapid Building on Renshaw Street. For me this piece really did capture the sprit of the biennial title, 'touched', as the viewer is forced to become physically involved in the piece. 

The 'sky gazers' are painted on the floor, with a low mirror forming the ceiling of the room, making everything seem smaller and further enforcing the idea that you as the audience are now involved in the piece.

You are invited into the piece, and look up into the mirror at not only the piece, but also at yourself at the same time.

I wondered through most of the exhibition, but Harsha's piece seemed to captivate everybody to sit down and actually absorb the work, rather than pass straight through