Swal-low was a light and ceramic based installation that explored transience and beauty. Consisting of a sea of delicately crafted and installed backlit ceramic tiles, the work intended to captivate the viewer with its surreal and dream-like qualities.
The swallow has had a variety of stories and associations throughout history; it has been known to reference awakening, guidance, and action. With this exhibition, Dylan McHugh hoped to give us a deeper understanding of these associations and the ways they are formulated. Embossed swallows glowed through the micro-thin ceramic material that each tile is made from. Viewers followed the path of a boardwalk surrounding the installation, engaging from many angles.
Dylan McHugh is a Vancouver-based interdisciplinary artist. He received a BFA in visual art at NSCAD University and is a founding member of the artist collective DRIL. McHugh has exhibited in Canada and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Measure Of Light (Dynamo Arts Association), Thru The Trapdoor (On Main Gallery) and Western (Kamloops Art Gallery)
Swal-low // Charo Neville
Mythologies of the swallow have appeared in disparate cultures and belief systems throughout history; references to the bird can be traced to the annals of ancient history. In the Book of the Dead, illustrations show how a pharaoh could transform his soul into a swallow, as Egyptians believed swallows to be the souls of the dead. In the Pyramid Texts, when speaking about a near death experience the pharaoh describes how he has “gone to the great island in the midst of the Field of Offerings on which the swallow gods alight; the swallows are the imperishable stars”. The bird also often appears in paintings of the solar Braque, standing on the prow to welcome the dawning sun. In Greek mythology swallows were associated with the goddess Aphrodite and oddly considered unlucky, but for the Romans, swallows were a symbol of Venus and regarded as lucky because they were believed to carry the souls of dead children. The symbol of the swallow appears strongly again in the Victorian era, as a representation of pledged love, often seen tattooed on the bodies of sailors to show that they would return to their loved ones. Aboriginal legends closely relate the swallow to the magical Thunderbird because it will fly before a thunderstorm arrives.
The swallow has been marveled for its cosmopolitan long-distance migratory patterns and keen adaptation to aerial feeding. It has evolved to hunt insects on the wing by developing a streamlined body and long pointed wings, which allow great maneuverability and endurance, as well as frequent periods of gliding. Understood as a sign of the end of winter, the arrival of the swallow is seen as a messenger of spring. Before migratory patterns were documented, the swallow was a predictor of the seasons – it was commonly believed that when swallows would disappear on mass, they had withdrawn to spend the winter under the ice at the bottom of lakes.
As if bird-watching from well established vantage points, viewers of Dylan McHugh’s Swal-low, can witness a flight (or a gulp) of swallows from above. Are they mid-flight, making passage to the other world? Or are they frozen in a liminal space? Made from individually crafted micro-thin translucent ceramic tiles that hover over a grid of white LED lights, the pathway is the gallery’s only source of light, a beacon that guides viewers to contemplate our ultimate mortality. Frequently working collaboratively, the process of developing this work allowed McHugh to explore phenomenological approaches to ideas of impermanence and the ineffable through his personal art practice.
Immersing the viewer in a sensorial experience, Swal-low spatially responds to the scale, orientation and layout of the existing architecture, while at the same time limiting the viewer’s perception of their environment to ambient light and the trajectory of the pathway itself. The pathway floats in space, too fragile to walk on; from the viewing platforms we are removed from the stability of the ground and transposed to an ethereal realm.
The swallow has also often referenced awakening. In this sense, McHugh’s Swal-low offers a meditative space, similar to the experience of awe when in nature — a reprieve from the clutter of the material world. Peering from above, as if standing at the edge of a lake at the brink of winter to assess the porousness of the edges of the icy shores and its ability to carry our weight, McHugh’s installation speaks to our trust in the fragility of life in the face of unknowing. Swal-low evokes the possibility of the existence of a state of stasis along the journey to the other side, like swallows resting in the frozen lake, suspended in time until the seasons change and they are released once again.