How malleable is identiy. When people don a mask, do we accept them as someone else? And do they see themselves as someone else? These questions form the starting point for Stephen Setford's sculptures, which are derived from a collection of film stills of western actors playing eastern roles. For Celia Pym, questions of identity arise from a set of old postcards the artist has received over time. Pym embroiders the text of the postcards with the author's name omitted, onto a fabric that is too delicate to ever be posted. In these works we never completely lose sight of Pym's starting point, but we are also caught up in the transformations brought by the artist's exploration.

In Setford's sculptures, identity is essentially a performance construction; for Pym, it evolves through the cumulative effects of personal memory, which builds into an identity. She asks: how much of our view of others is merely a projection? And when we look at family photos, do we look for others or for ourselves?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(r) "Assemblage no. 3", Stephen Setford