1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS TAKE IT
Freya Dooley & Cinzia Mutigli
2023
Collaborative solo exhibition at GS Artists, Swansea
02.06.23 - 24.06.23
Supported by Arts Council of Wales
HD film with stereo sound, colour, 1920 x 1920
55’30’’
All you need to do is take it incorporates writing, sound, print and animation exploring relationships between self-help culture and consumerism. The exhibition comprises an animated film, sound, print and text installation transversing themes of feeling (better) and being (bearable). The film and audio work gradiates through shifting moods and landscapes of Candy Crush Saga, impulse buying, voices of authority, Tupperware, blisters, and there are also a couple of encounters with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Developing the work through a conversational process, our research and writing explores self-soothing mechanisms and our relationship to ‘solutions’ and distractions from difficult feelings and structures of un-wellbeing. The work considers private and public behaviours in connection to neoliberal, individualised approaches to fulfilling both real and invented needs, and some of the ways we are invited or expected to help ourselves navigate unstable systems.
12 episodic narratives expand scenarios such as clothes shopping in a supermarket, or collecting a parcel, to reflect on wider subjects of money, use, value, authority, and depression. We are interested in the frictions of an interior emotional life making contact with the external world, and the blisters that this rubbing creates.
Printed imagery on the exterior of the gallery depicts bulging protective bubblewrap, tinted with the soft colour gradients which are ubiquitous on social media infographics and affirmations. Inside the installation, a painted gradient of orange and pink floods the gallery wall, alongside a large print of deflated bubblewrap, and soft orange lighting.
Listen to Audio Description for the exhibition here.
The film’s narration is captioned. Audio description of the exhibition space is available at the front of the gallery, with headphones hung on the wall on your right. The exhibition is wheelchair accessible, and there is seating in the space. Some of the texts that have informed our research are available to browse at the back of the gallery.
The project is supported by Arts Council of Wales. The research and development stages of the project were supported by Arts Council of Wales, Fieldwork, Lizzie Lloyd & WITTA and Arnolfini.
-
Time codes for each chapter:
1. Candy Crushes (00’00’’)
2. Redirection (03’20’’)
3. Rescue fantasies (14’36’’)
4. Not working (16’45’’)
5. Confessions (21’57’’)
6. Soft spot (31’14’’)
7. No limits (34’27’’)
8. True choice (35’38’)
9. Your choice (38’40’’)
10. Self-contained (39’40’’)
11. Let’s go deeper (47’00’’)
12. Maybe it’ll be fine (50’20’’)
Credits
Written, performed and edited by Freya Dooley & Cinzia Mutigli
Animated visuals by Cinzia Mutigli
Sound Design by Freya Dooley
Captions by Roger Graham
Audio Description written and read by Anthony Shapland
Exhibition design by Freya Dooley & Cinzia Mutigli
Technical support and build from Aled Simons, Demian Johnston, Harry Morgan, g39 and Jon Ruddick
Photos by Michal Iwanowski
A warm thanks to:
Aled Simons, Anja Stenina, Anthony Shapland, Clare Charles, Demian Johnston, g39, Harry Morgan, Helen Clifford, Jane Simpson, Jon Ruddick, Roger Graham
For their support in the developmental stages of the project, thanks to:
Arts Council of Wales, Phoebe Davies & Fieldwork, Lizzie Lloyd & WITTA, Phil Owen & Arnolfini