[Burgweg 15]

Ellie Ga Solo Presentation
June 12, 2012, 1:00 pm
at Ellie Ga

Bureau is pleased to present a solo project by artist Ellie Ga at LISTE 2012. Ga's work is based on an ongoing series of investigations and travels and for LISTE, Ga will be on-site at our booth, presenting readings to small groups over her own ad-hoc card deck. She will be weaving stories from Alexandria Egypt, overlapping the imagery culled from her time spent in the Arctic aboard the Tara. From January to May of this year, Ga lived and studied in Alexandria researching the sunken ruins, particularly the Pharos, a symbol for origin and destination. The lighthouse became a central metaphor for her return to civilization during her months aboard the polar schooner in the Polar North. In Egypt, she spent months diving in the Mediterranean and meeting with archeologists who study these ruins. Her newest work will interweave these two narratives. To my mind, the essential characteristic of the palimpsest is that it unwittingly preserves what it destroys. The 19th century villas of Alexandria acted as a palimpsest, layered over the ancient city, but preserving the antiquity underneath thanks to their shallow foundations. The arctic images in the deck are now used to re-interpret the past, and our attempts to uncover the origins of the lighthouse. The Arctic leads to Alexandria, until the Arctic is replaced by Alexandria, yet the images on the cards retain a trace of their former lives as placeholders for tales of the polar night. Like the 19th century Alexandrian villa, the new readings both cover and preserve, with the logbook of metaphors now extended over time and geography. -Ellie Ga Ellie Ga Readings:  Monday June 11, 1 - 7 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday, 3 - 7 p.m., please contact Bureau to make an appointment.   http://www.liste.ch/