Hannah Collins. The Hunters Space

Soon after the collapse of the Eastern bloc, Poland underwent a critical moment in its history, epitomising the collision of East and West in which deep-rooted traditions were confronted by alien contemporary culture. For her exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery, Hannah Collins shows large photographs that the artist has taken during recent travels in Poland. Through the title of the exhibition, The Hunter’s Space, the artist referred to and commented upon predatory behaviour at once signified by the depicted scenes, her artistic activity and our relationship with the work.

In Collins’ work, personal experience and political concerns are conflated. Typically, her practice exemplifies an acknowledgement of particular places and times (including the event of the exhibition itself) while asserting more general observations on the nature of being in the world. Collins aspires to an illusionism whereby the photographs capture quiet, meditative, slow, dream-like views. The gallery thus becomes a site of images which gently push us out of the space we occupy, in order to empty the space - this hunter’s space - of itself.

Hannah Collins was born in London in 1956 and graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1979. In 1993 she was nominated for the Turner Prize for her exhibition Signs of Life at the 1992 Istanbul Biennial.

Hannah Collins
The Hunter's Space