Gone

Print on vinyl, beach towels, sunchairs, speaker, gna projects, Stockholm, Sweden, 2020

Joining two previous projects, Gone Clicking (2018-) and Gone Swimming(2019), Tina Umer wants to create an environment where tension between theoverwhelming and the pleasant shows us the human ability to filter out, twistand turn, be anxiously amused or depressingly indifferent.
Drawing from the “public-private” field online, she evokes discussions on thevalue of objects, consumerism and the human experience. The works mayencounter the viewer with fascination, entertaining them, evoking pleasanthumoresque moments, but only to leave her overwhelmed, guilty or worried. The notions of the modern silk road, of the tipping turn for our climate, of ourinsatiable need to be entertained and improved may feel hopeless, but at theend of the day the artist just gives these objects a second life, an immortalisedmoment in the multiply of online universes and a prolonged conversation on ourneeds and desires.
Water comes into the work through relaxing sounds from a beach and a blue camouflaged golf ball, reminding us of our planet and the relation we have to it. The same element that gives and takes comes across with the idealised life of lying on the beach, indulging in nothingness. At that moment perhaps a newspaper comes by, where we cankeep our mind engaged in reading about some seemingly distant problems.