Wolfe Lenkiewicz

Wolfe Lenkiewicz's film 'The Park' takes as a reference point newspapers found in an East End park. They act as windows to penetrate into the park's history. Themes such as WW II, fascism and the East End are explored.

The Park is a film based on visual and sound fragments gathered from a park in Bethnal Green. One of the inspirations for the installation comes from Italo Calvino's novel "Mr Palomar". As in the novel, the direction of the focus of attention is non-hierarchic creating an impression of objective passivity – as if everything is seen through a lens. The movement of an ant and the flight of an aeroplane are afforded equal narrative status. In this way the subject matter becomes potentially infinite: the park continues endlessly to yield for the seemingly impartial view of the narrator.

Despite this impartiality particular narratives seem to assert themselves from the chaos of meanings: the influence of the local Bangladeshi community, their post-war immigration as well as that of Jewish population (once estimated at 20,000 in the London East End) continually echoes. The interpenetration of the present with the time of war is given voice through "signs" still existent in the park. The park carries its history.

However, perhaps the 'Impartiality' of the narrator is not so total: through the dialogue with the park is he being drawn into an approach with his own distanced heritage as the child of a Polish Jew? The semblance of dispassionate 'distance'-both through the idea of the 'objective' narrator and the idea of boundary inherent in the park-enables a powerful engagement with the park.

Depth of meaning overflows from the false 'objective' flattening of significance (and history): the human being is on the other side of the lens and history continually gathers meaning into itself. The park is like a seashell: it carries the echoes.
Sound sampling and expressive visual editing combine to create a deeply poetic and powerful installation that explores identity, place and time.

> view Hangman by Wolfe Lenkiewicz, 3 April - 12 May 2002