other things seen, other things heard @ Market Gallery

It hits upon entering the space, the vinyl spoiler immediately forcing you to read the work in a very particular way. Which is a shame as the work presented here is capable of engaging with a wider set of concerns than the link between memory and the objects, images and texts that assist and obscure our ability to recall the past. Ailsa Lochhead’s research practice concerning a history of Victorian salt production at the Portobello salt flats, mixed with her personal present day location within that space, is brought together through her explorative use of salt as subject, medium and process. This sculptural evocation of a period that wavers between the tangible and the forgotten initially seems at odds with Moira Ricci’s home video portraying amateur dancers (young artist included) enjoying the music of the 1980s. The companion Super 8 projection, however, starts to shift the personal past into a more collective, cinematic past, as the frame rate, colours and graininess recall a time long before VHS.

The works collected here begin to resolve their differences and start to speak more coherently about the representation of historical period through the use of personal narratives or fictions. The relationship to childhood and the nostalgia of a happier, simpler time emerges as a clear link between the two artists: Lochhead’s bucket in her salt-processed images reveals the sandcastle-like production of her salt tiles while the doll of Ricci’s young protagonist brings out the more playful nature of Lochhead’s lead cast salt pans. [Sam Stead]