Fire Under Snow: Darren Almond

Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is pleased to present FIRE UNDER SNOW, a one-person exhibition devoted to recent works by the British artist, Darren Almond. This will be Almond’s first large-scale exhibition to date in a U.K. institution and includes two recent films, a group of large black and white photographs and an important wall sculpture.

Almond’s work takes as its subject matter the recurring themes of time, memory, human labour, exploitation and corruption in various geographical parts of the world. In them he deals with both the private and collective human experience, with global and intimate concerns, in modes that are both analytical and emotional.

The major work in the exhibition is a 14-minute three-screen film that Almond has filmed in China and Tibet and will have its UK premiere at Parasol unit. The film focuses on the world’s highest railway, constructed by the Chinese government to link China and Tibet. Aided by a high-definition camera Darren Almond took this dangerous route capturing the speeding trains traveling across the Tibetan Plateau. The film is a combination of footage of the train route with Tibetan Buddhist monks, filmed in the Samye Monastery, in Lhasa.  The second film will have its world premiere at Parasol unit and features the daily routine of workers in one of the sulfur mines in Indonesia. Under severe conditions of poisonous air, the workers have to transport extremely heavy loads of sulfur down from the crater and have only a rag to cover their mouth. The exhibition comprises also some large-scale black and white photographs of the dead forests around the mining town of Norilsk in Siberia as well as a large wall sculpture made of 600 digital clocks.