Moloko Plus Six Show 3

‘Moloko Plus Six’ named after the infamous cocktail featured in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ where much of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece is set; representing six artists based in Thamesmead our rendition is a milk-based drink laced with six secret ingredients. Over the course of the summer we invite three local artist pairings to present their practice at the Lakeside Centre, as part of a Summer Residency to launch the recently reburnished community centre. Pull up a stool at the Thamesmead Texas bar and order a drink of the ‘Moloko Plus Six’ whilst overlooking the live demolition of the Clockwork Orange ‘Flat Block Marina’, more commonly known as Binsey Walk. Moloko Plus Six is a series of exhibitions, featuring pairs of artists based in Thamesmead.

Curated by Scully & Scully. Funded by Bow Arts Trust.

Thamesmead Texas presents the third in a trilogy of summer shows in our project space at the iconic Lakeside Centre. Matthew Berka & Dominika Kieruzel present a new video work ‘Inland’ (2019); and Vanessa Scully has installed her film ‘Decolonizing Marisa’ (2019) as well as two new paintings. Seemingly completely different works both artist films have connections to the Australian landscape, however were filmed in relative proximity to Thamesmead. As artists living and working in Thamesmead one cannot help but be drawn to the landscape that surrounds us; the vast skies, the marshes, the woodland, the concrete and the lakes. This absolutely diverse ecosystem starts forming our very being, while seeping into our work in varying degrees. For Matthew Berka and Dominka Kieruzel’s film, the body, the landscape and the camera congeal, we are uncomfortably close and silent, a slight itchiness perhaps, hypnotic, before our eyes begin to dissolve

“The title of the film is borrowed from a novel by Australian writer, Gerald Murnane. The film relates to the book in its character, in so far as it is a perambulation, an excursion into landscape in a view to see it anew. It is also an account of such an excursion: the core part of the film is a record of it, an experiment in which a joint vow of silence and lack of instructions lead the characters on both sides of the lens to another time and another place. In the course of the excursion the camera becomes a part of the landscape, it too is seen anew. It becomes many things. The surprise of this film is that the one who is usually looked at – is also looking, and it is sort of equal in looking. The hierarchical relationship of the camera and what it sees – subject and object – is broken, there are two subjects. But there is also something beyond that, somewhere we get by way of being still, somewhere we get by way of being-looking. Perhaps an eye is a key. An eye is a window to your house, your body is your house. An eye, a lens, a camera, a room. A camera is a room.” Matthew Berka and Dominika Kieruzel.

The degrees are ramped up to 110 in Vanessa Scully’s narrative/ hybrid documentary ‘Decolonising Marisa’. Based on a true story, Scully’s film also brings us uncomfortably close, as we watch a domestic drama unfold. The artist places us the viewer nearby, invited to sit with an Australian beer like nosy neighbours on the periphery of the drama.

“This hybrid film form, marries fiction, documentary, research, appropriation and autobiography to explore themes related to migration and displacement through a multifaceted approach. This work is based on true stories. Set in a caravan park on a coastal village in Australia, a domestic drama unfolds, between an old man and his young, recently acquired Filipino bride. Centred around a TV dinner, performed in real time, the film escalates through layers of time, space and form, using an obsolete television as a time travelling device. Intersecting fiction with research, staged performance is combined with found footage, to create a dual narrative shown concurrently on a single channel. ‘Decolonizing Marisa’ seeks to question the institutional knowledge of the Philippines, as depicted by the mass media news and entertainment machine. This film is based upon my mother passage to ‘a better life in the west’.”

MATTHEW BERKA is a London-based artist and curator from Melbourne who works with film, video and sound. Through audiovisual assemblage he creates speculative films that explore associations between place and the unknown.

DOMINIKA KIERUZEL is a visual and performance artist, working across media, from painting and sculpture through to textile and sewing, to performance, photography, music and film. A central focus of her work is contact. In a wide sense her work is often an attempt to be close to an object, a person, a place or herself and as such, it draws on the intimacy with the immediate environment and the everyday.

VANESSA SCULLY is an Australian artist and filmmaker based in London. Most recent projects explore her mixed-race heritage as a ‘person of colour’, whilst questioning the institutional knowledge of ‘the Philippines’, as depicted by mass media news and entertainment. Scully graduated with an MA in Experimental Film from Kingston School and Art in 2019.