We all know that echoes are sound reflected from a surface back to the listener, and a sure-fire way to have fun. Chambers resonate laughter. Streets reverberate footsteps. It is also reminiscent to think of echoes to the past and hark back to visions of historical events. So with this in mind I enter the current installation by Holly Rowan-Hesson at the Pyramid Arts centre, a site-commissioned piece for this year’s Warrington Arts Festival.
Buildings and place inhabit Echo so completely that the evolving stream of photographic imagery echoes within the very fabric of the Pyramid.
Seeing past the industrial, roughly hemmed material to the expanse of coloured frames projected onto its coarse surface is easy as you begin to spot the photographic close-ups and abstracted forms within its manifold. The building seemingly surrenders its grey concrete floor, metal railings, steel corrugated ceiling and large imposing windows to the systematic arrangement in colour, abstraction and style. A moving carousel grounded in memory, contact and reclamation.
In her handling of man-made materials in tune with this stark environment, Holly’s installation amplifies the effect of being in an urban surrounding. Yet viewing the carefully arranged line-up of vibrant drapings across the rail through the gauze netting adds to the mystery of really seeing the building, so that you get an acute sense of it.
Echo subtly signifies something else at work within the Pyramid, the background is brought forward to the fore. Whether it be the whispers of people mingling along the corridors to the exciting buzz of a post-performance crowd, Echo offers up an exciting multitude of possibility within its shape, form, pattern and line.
On until Saturday 27 Jan 2018
Pyramid & Parr Hall
Cultural Quarter
Palmyra Square South
Warrington, WA1 1BL
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