Gabriella Sonabend Sonabend I am a story-teller, whose work is concerned entirely with people and the way they relate to one another and see the world. I am interested in the small gestures that make up ordinary lives as well as the great archetypal themes, which resonates throughout literature and art as long as history can remember. I search for magic in the mundane and spectacle in the quotidian, my work seeks to expose the peculiar beauties of the world, whilst frequently taking on a social role and seeking to engage with the political. My fascination with stories has taken me across the world to work in Israel, India, Peru, Colombia, and Italy but it has also taken me into the heart of my own home city to investigate the cracks and corners of London. In London I have followed the lives of house clearers, recycling and waste management workers, hoarders, DIY fanatics, new immigrants and many more people with fascinating interior lives, searching for stories and trying to better understand the infinite collage, which makes up our world. In India I made a documentary about road workers, in South America I spent 6 months researching mythologies, folklore and the traumatic history of Colombia working alongside sculptor (Sol Bailey Barker) to write new myths, which integrate views of contemporary society with the old. My work is an investigation, I am a watcher, a listener and a recorder, who lives somewhere between fiction and fact. My practice involves interviewing, filming and finding ways of presenting new stories to the public through video and writing. I often work in collaboration with other artists, musicians and designers and enjoy challenging my practice through concept and medium.
Summer 2015
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