The gallery has been returned to a warehouse or storeroom. Shelves and storage units, haphazardly constructed out of timber and boarding, dominate the space. Unevenly filled with objects, some areas crammed full whilst others remain empty, the environment suggests a situation of transition: perhaps the genesis of, or detritus from, another world. Traces of its index, although alien and almost impenetrable, are visible within the environment. Amongst the structure is evidence of a living space, but this too is ambiguously defined, as it is built into, and catalogued under, the whole system.

Indications of diverse narratives and histories, uncertainly located in both place and time, fiction and reality, populate TRADING STATION ALPHA CMa. Collaging references from film and literature with discarded evidence of actual events, a semblance of a new narrative emerges within the space. The narrative, however, is obscured and confused, like a parable without object, imbued with the potential of collapse. The environment, constructed out of layer upon layer of fictions, offers the viewer its potential as a metaphor for a greater system, but also threatens to refer to nothing but itself.

Dislocated and introverted, but informed by the realisation of its own absurdity, the installation is not without humour, albeit black: within the claustrophobia of the storeroom lie indications of the presence of somebody, or something, that possibly doesn’t exist in its own right. The nature of the inhabitant refers to the history and name of the gallery within which its world is made. Collaging pure fantasy with reality to the greater ends of one prevailing fiction, it finds itself entrapped, both physically and mentally, within a hinterland, either of its own making or fabricated by an outside system.

The exhibition has been generously supported by The Henry Moore Foundation.