黑料不打烊

The Ring in the Fish is a multi-part exhibition featuring a new experimental 16mm film work by Alia Syed that will be presented as a series of moving image vignettes, alongside material fragments of memory and place. Syed鈥檚 practice is the product of her engagement in and response to a nexus of geopolitical, historical and personal factors, which she seeks to reimagine and recreate within the immersive space of cinema. Matter is simultaneously revealed and redacted, forcing different forms of viewing, and allowing different temporalities to surface.

Centred on storytelling and oral narratives, this work is preoccupied with how these histories exist in the spaces between official narratives, particularly in relation to national identities, race, gender and diaspora. Drawing inspiration from the tale of St. Mungo鈥攑atron saint and founder of Glasgow; and the story of the fish and the ring, the title becomes a conduit for the transformative nature of both individual and collective narratives. It marks a personal exploration of separation, journeys, grief, memory, and identity, within a framework of meanings in which personal narratives co-exist with the broader narratives of Glasgow.

Syed therefore gleans stories and conjures images from the inner worlds and psyches of migrant South Asian communities who came to Glasgow in the 60s and 70s, for whom these visual imaginations served as a bridge to buffer the harsh realities of post-war Britain. In doing so, this work further interrogates these imaginative histories set against a backdrop of political change, making visible the delicate re-balancing of narrative, memory, and meaning. It explores what role imagination holds in migration, and how these images held by different waves of migrants create new psychic landscapes, enabling new ways of being.