Upon seeing Attie's work, he focused his presentation on an underlying theme that collective memory is the root of history, stating that he articulates relationships between place, memory and identity through imagery that both originates in and is superimposed upon marginalized communities whose histories are in the process of being forgotten. His haunting art made the forgotten again visible. Attie himself described it as a "peeling back the wallpaper of today to reveal the histories buried underneath."
Attie created a five-channel video installation and a body of still photographs to re-imagine the Welsh village of Aberfan. In 1966, the village became known the world over when a coal waste tip slid down a mountainside and buried the village's only primary school. Nearly an entire generation of the village's children as well as many adults lost their lives. Within hours of the disaster -and ever since- the village lost its privacy as the worldwide news media descended upon it. Having become "famous" as the village that lost its children and forever identified with the disaster, Aberfan -and places like it the world over- has found it difficult to move on. In 2006, on the disaster's 40th anniversary, Attie was invited by the BBC to come to Aberfan to see if it was possible for a contemporary artist to help the village move on. Over the course of several months he invited villagers into his studio and asked them to assume statuary poses that would reflect their social or occupational role within the village while he filmed them on an unseen slowly revolving stage. The Attraction of Onlookers thus lies at the intersection between the static and moving image. Individuals were illuminated by a complex lighting set up that created a delicate and beautiful play of light and shadow reminiscent of Old Master paintings. No actors, digital effects, slow motion, or still photographs were employed. Villagers 'performed' being themselves, with the resulting 'cast' including: the fish-and-chips man (the 'chipper'), the ex-coal miner, the headmaster, the minister, the boxer, the male choir singers, their conductor, the bartender, and so on. By consciously playing on iconic Welsh tropes, Attie created an artwork, which might help Aberfan, take its rightful place, 40 years on, as a Welsh village among other Welsh villages.
I really enjoyed this series. I just could not drag my eyes away from the people that are shown. It defiantly took me by surprise when one of these “static” people would move something minor, like blinking an eye or something like that. I personally believe that it made these videos stronger.
Website:
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Interview:
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Gallery:
http://www.artnet.com/artist/1730/shimon-attie.html
Http://collections.mocp.org/info.php?f=maker&type=browse&t=objects&s=Attie%2C+Shimon
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