DIG 21: Hetain Patel | Don’t Look At The Finger
Film installation, free to visit during venue opening hours:
Tuesday – Fridays 12 -5pm
Saturdays & Sundays 12 – 6pm
CLOSED Mondays
Late openings on:
Fri 15 and Wed 20 October (7.30pm)
Fri 22 & Sat 23 October (9pm)
Watch a Q & A with Hetain Patel and Chirag Lukha on our website now as part of our DIG Online strand. LINK >
Don’t Look At The Finger presents a wedding ceremony where a couple meet for the first time, seeking connection through ritual, combat and signed languages. As the ceremony proceeds, gestures of a ritualistic sign language becomes combative, blending it with Kung Fu and transforming costumes to create a new physical and visual language. With an unusual take on the action-romance genre, wordless physical dialogue becomes both intimate and stylized. Individual and collective identities are questioned through visually arresting costumes combining West African wedding attire with Japanese inspired combat clothes.
Access: Highly Visual / No or Little Text
A Film and Video Production, commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella with Manchester Art Gallery and QUAD.
Supported by Arts Council England and Jerwood Choreographic Research Fund.
Biography
Hetain Patel is a London-based visual artist and performance maker. His live performances, films, sculptures, and photographs have been shown worldwide from the Venice Biennale, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Tate Modern, London to Sadler’s Wells, where he is a New Wave Associate. Patel made his first dance company work for Candoco in 2014, which toured internationally for five years. His work exploring identity and freedom, using humour, choreography and text appears in multiple formats and media, intended to reach the widest possible audience. His video and performance work online have been watched over 50 million times, which includes his TED talk of 2013 titled, ‘Who Am I? Think Again’.
Patel is represented by Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, is a Patron of QUAD, Derby, and sits on the Artist Council for a-n. He is the winner of the Film London Jarman Award, 2019, Kino Der Kunst Festival’s Best International Film 2020, and has been selected to participate in British Art Show 9, 2021/22. In 2021 Patel received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist Award and is a judge on Sky Arts new television series, Landmark.
Header image shows a still from 'Don't Look At The Finger'