Shed Light* Madrid Performance Dates: 2005
Wednesday 9th February – 7.00pm
Thursday 10th February – 6.00pm
Friday 11th February – 6.00pm Marc Rees/Benedict Anderson
Presented by R.I.P.E. in association with CBAT ARCO Art Fair, Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I. Madrid.
Presented by Escena Contempoaranea. Shed*light is a multi media artwork that looks at the reconstruction of an individual’s experience of space, place and identity through architectural design, building, film photography and sound installation.

Shed*light is an environment that challenges perceptions of intimacy and exposure through interventions into existing spaces creating a collision that redefines notions of imaginary and actual space.

Shed*Light first opened in Cardiff, Wales in November 2004 in the form of a two part installation comprising of Replica and Remnants. Replica is a reconstruction of an old dynamite shed from the Swansea Valley in South Wales that was the site of Rees’ first sexual experience. The piece was first situated at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans, Cardiff. The interior and exterior of the replica shed was completely covered with bespoke, flocked wallpaper designed by Rees and Anderson in collaboration with Berlin artist Andrea Poessnicker. The design emulated the ivy that covered the original shed but embedded with subtle male erotica that echoed the rites of passage nature of the buildings history.

Part two, Remnants was located within a derelict house in Cardiff. The installation comprised of a visual and structural intervention across all three floors of the building. The architectural intervention consisted of realigning the building’s existing floor plans through the construction of undulating surfaces and planes that shifted the viewers experience and perception of the space. The visual and visceral nature of the exhibition experience challenged the viewers reading of the two dimensional images placed within the exhibition environment (large-scale photographic prints by German photographer Stephan Goettlicher). In addition, the wallpaper used for Replica was also engaged to highlight certain architectural details and original features within the disused house. Specific to the exhibition was the creation of video and sound environments that further extended the viewers overall pictorial, structural and aural relationships in the re-imagining of personal and public spaces.

The undulating floors mirrored the rural and urban topography of the two film works that formed an integral part of the installation; footage that captured Rees mapping out his family ‘square mile’ in the Swansea Valley and that of his adopted ‘heimat’ in the city of Berlin . Although Shed*light grew out of experiences within Wales, the work can be adopted and adapted out of its local site specificity to incorporate new locations. As such the work evolves, absorbing the geography of a new location and spawning further variations. Re-presenting Shed*light will engage multiple variations in scale, lending itself to the projects ongoing longevity and development. The intention of the Madrid presentation is to combine selected material from Replica and Remnants and place these within a challenging new environment. This will also involve the added element of a live solo performance by Rees entitled ‘Norman Behaviour’. The live presence will enhance the performative nature of the architectural construction as a space of social interaction and desire. The performance will take place in, on and around the existing Shed*light structures and incoorparate a new addition; the fuselage of a DC9 aeroplane located in the main foyer of ARCO 05. The DC9 has been through a dramatic renovation process and has been transformed under the name ‘Avion’ into a mobile art space - “cultural mobile infrastructure for artistic creation and experimentation”. ‘Shed*light’ has been invited by Escena Contemporanea as the first artistic intervention to use the space in the context of ARCO.

Marc Rees is one of Wales’s leading exponents of contemporary dance. His innovative interdisciplinary performances are known for their flamboyant, humorous and often extreme interpretations of history, culture and personal experience. Exploring issues of cultural and sexual identity in an inventive, idiosyncratic style.

Through his company R.I.P.E (Rees International Projects Enterprise) he has initiated several highly successful International collaborations with furniture designers, filmmakers, authors, composers and choreographers across Europe and North America. The latest work Shed*light is a collaboration with Berlin architect Benedict Anderson.