Samantha Rees

Nature and architecture are two unmistakable themes in my work. I find the tension and anxiety between the two to be fascinating and melancholic at the same time. The forms of architecture I focus on are ruins, abandoned and disused structures, and social housing, each with its unique yet very different relationships to nature and human life. Yet what they share is being economic reminders of something greater. They may be viewed as disturbances to the natural order or as eyesores in metropolitan areas. It is possible to see structures that are in ruins or have lost their historical relevance as a momentary break in the capitalist system. How will they appear in the long future, and how did they appear in the past? when the natural world has taken over and it becomes difficult to distinguish between buildings and natural areas? symbolising a vanished civilization from the past. My work reflects a synthesis of the non-fictional and the fictional, a depiction of a parallel reality. I make drawings, installations, sculpture and videos, exploring the tension between fantasy and reality. The drawings especially depict worlds that could exist in the past, now, and in the future. In addition to my practice, I am also part of a Duo Sam Man Pad Rees. We make videos with sound and installations also with sound for now going on for over a decade. Ruins may be the only object that is semi-permanent and changes far more slowly than our memories because our memory is continually eroding far more quickly. The past is emphasized by the ruins. Nonetheless, the term "ruin" is defined extremely broadly. I have pushed these boundaries continuously throughout my work. In my opinion, artists are in a unique position to reflect on the past, recognize its intricacies and maladies, and comment on the present and future while keeping in mind the highly precarious circumstances we live in today. Many urban landscapes will and have been forgotten over time. We don't have to travel very far into history to find examples of man-made landscapes that have become obsolete (see video “ Monuments in Time” https://vimeo.com/user46383620) We are living in a period of social, economic, and environmental upheaval. There are clues all around us that our entire way of life is very realistically becoming something of the past. Meanwhile, mainstream Art in the West at least has historically been about shock, breaching taboos, and gaining attention. This has been going on for so long that it i