Acies

17 – 24 November 2017, The Number Shop, Edinburgh.

Acies is an exhibition that responds to the concept of war by investigating its visual and iconographic aspects. The Latin word Aciēs (/ˈa.ki.eːs/) has multiple meanings: sharpness, sharp edge, point, battle field, battle line, array, sight, glance, pupil of eye. This word discloses the aim of this exhibition, that is to comment on the correlation between spectacle and war.

This new body of work could be seen as a visual response to the fictional representation of warfare given by the media, as well as an examination of how contemporary society reacts to the way modern conflicts are portrayed.

Instead of focusing on images that are usually associated with the context of war (e.g. bodies, blood, weapons), this new body of work investigates on the peripheral imagery. Objects, images and motifs that are part of a war-related scenario but not usually a primary symbolisation of it (e.g. textures, maps, songs, monuments).

The exhibition is accompanied by a text written by Anastasia Philimonos.