The Rag Papers. Corin Sworn

Western Front presents a solo exhibition of The Rag Papers, by the Canadian, Glasgow-based artist Corin Sworn. This month-long installation will be the first Canadian exhibition of the work. Supported by Western Front Media Arts, the work is a co-commission by Chisendale Gallery (London, UK) and Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (Aachen, Germany).

Swornʼs film installation with synchronized lighting and immersive sound presents a lilting narrative of purposeful discontinuity, fragmentation and repetition. The project envelops the viewer using environmental interruptions to complicate the narrative action. The viewpoint shifts between the perspectives of three characters, all set within domestic interiors, coupled with views into transient spaces such as hotel rooms, sorting depots and markets. The film reveals itself to be an open-ended story, slowly told, in which common objects are used to transmit attention and action through a narrative, and to gently suggest a mysterious set of relationships.

The Rag Papers builds on an ongoing exploration of the means by which artifacts are borrowed, adapted and reconfigured to tell stories. Corin Swornʼs works look to the erratic nature of human perception as possible source of resistance to imposed structures of social control.

Artist Biography

Corin Sworn was born in 1977 in London, UK. Raised in Toronto, she studied psychology at the University of British Columbia and integrated media at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, before earning her masterʼs at the Glasgow School of Art. Sworn has exhibited at Tate Britain; Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art; Witte de With, EASTinternational; Kunsthalle Basel; and Participant Inc. She was nominated for The Jarman Award 2011 and The Jerwood / Film and Video Umbrella Award 2012, was a representative of Scotland at the Venice Biennale, 2013, and was the winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2014. Sworn lives and works in Glasgow, UK.