This Moment Here

'This Moment Here' is an installation, first shown in a solo exhibition at BLOCspace, Sheffield (2008). It was shown again in 2009 in a group exhibition entitled, 'Tier-Perspektiven (Animal Perspectives)' at the Georg-Kolbe-Museum in Berlin. This installation is part of Brown’s long-standing research into the use of anthropomorphism in children’s narratives to deliver and make palatable stark messages about the human condition. Parallels can be seen with children’s fiction, in which animals are often employed as metaphors for aspects of human experience in order to distance the audience from the horror of death, violence and destruction. The installation includes three pieces: • The first piece combined a large helium-filled inflatable black cloud with a small white, mounted mouse in the warehouse-like space of the gallery. • The second placed a white mounted mouse in front of an industrial roller. • The third element was a limited edition artist’s publication entitled 'Some Things That Fell'. A huge black cloud hovers in an empty industrial building above a tiny white mouse. Another mouse stands frozen to the spot in front of a hulking piece of machinery. This is a roller, a machine used to flatten road surfaces. The helium-filled black cloud acts as a harbinger of doom occupying and trapped within an enclosed space. It is reminiscent of the kind of black clouds found in cartoons such as “Peanuts” or “Tom & Jerry”. One strong influence for the confrontation between the roller and the mouse, is the iconic image of the “lone rebel” standing in front of a line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests of June 5th 1989. This is a defining moment in time, a frozen moment where the outcome is not clear. Brown's use of taxidermy is a longstanding feature in her work and it is featured here in the white mouse. She says she is drawn to taxidermy “not because it symbolizes death, but because it is death”. Brown is fascinated by the filmic freeze frame and she sees taxidermy as a form of 3d freezeframe. This is evident here in two pieces of work that depict moments frozen in time.