An installation of photographs, multiple objects and moving image.
OPENING EVENT…SATURDAY 16th MARCH @ 3pm…with discussion from 4pm on Dylan’s influence on the Work with Dr. David Holloway, Senior Lecturer in American Studies, David Ainley, Painter, Wayne Burrows, Artist & Writer and Maggy chaired by Professor David Manley
Maggy Milner’s ongoing concerns reflect changes and events in present times. Her work is enigmatic, with multilayered meanings. Recently, she has worked with still photography, video and site-specific installations.
Ain’t Talkin’. Just Walkin’ is her response to Bob Dylan’s song, (the final track on Modern Times released in 2006), and her reflections on the growing disparity and contradictions in society today.
Ain’t Talkin’ is surely poetry and open to many interpretations. It is a tale about a solitary traveller placed in a ‘landscape of sweet decay’(1). He is on a perpetual, cyclical journey through a ‘mystical garden’. He is deep in his own head, thinking of the past, the present and the future. There are disparate thoughts; seemingly disconnected references, some biblical, some contemporary. His head is full of vengeance; self-righteousness; regret and consuming guilt. Although, the song appears to be autobiographical, It can also be read as a lament for humanities’ constant cycle of trials and errors set in the world itself.
“Like Dylan, I am a traveller. My work is a kind of poetry. I make observations. I offer no solutions”.
“Despite what shiny surfaces the modern world gives us to polish, if we stare hard enough into them we will see not only the reflection of the past but also the possible horrors of the future.”
Quote from The Pen of Chris Gregory, November 18, 2007.
Maggy Milner will also launch her book Ain’t Talkin’, Just Walkin’.
Photographs, taken in 2007, record her walk along the Thames Path from Greenwich to the Thames Barrier with many views along the way of Canary Wharf and London’s financial centres. She decided to make the book in 2012.
“A great deal has happened since 2007. The ‘boom and bust’ has become more bust than boom. Across the Thames on Canary Wharf (in spite of the market’s downward turn), more upwardly mobile buildings have joined the corporate gang of high-rise supremos”.
She plans to repeat the walk in 2013 to see what changes have been made.
(1) Alex Ross, New Yorker, September 18, 2006.
