Kicking a Dead Horse

In James Sibley’s work, fragments of personal nostalgia and cultural recurrences alike are mined in order to scrutinize, poke fun at and mourn the loss of historicity within contemporary culture at large. By mapping fissures between the phantasy of the American dream (particularly through investigating animation’s past) and its distilling effects on the fantasy of European folklore, objects and environments - both found and fabricated - are assisted to appear as though they exist(ed) in reality.

In ‘Kicking A Dead Horse’, (2021) these ideas present themselves in the form of a sculptural installation, which houses moving image and sonic investigation. The various objects become conglomerates caught in flux, existing somewhere between film set and haunting experience, suspending the viewer in varying degrees of immersion.

This suspension aims to problematize viewer consent when experiencing art, and looks to provide the groundwork for examining the affective bandwidth of the signs and symbols of everyday reality, alongside their origins in Hollywoodized fiction. 

At the time he had recently graduated from a Fine Art BA at Goldsmiths University of London, James’ degree show piece is recreated at Artist Hive Studios for the duration of the Makers’ Yard opening weekend.

Kicking A Dead Horse (2021), mixed media installation, video, audio, dimensions variable.