A day in Sainsburys

Not the supermarket, of course, but the superb Sainsbury Centre at UEA, the art gallery and exhibition space built to house the collection of Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury that they donated to the university in 1973.  W's friend from London is staying with one of her friends for a couple of days and the friend is one of the volunteer guides in the centre, so we met up and joined one of the tours with her.

The theme covering the three exhibitions we saw is 'truth'.  The most fascinating, in my opinion, was a 'deep fake' setup which I've added as an extra.  It was a 1960's sitting room in which you could sit down and watch the TV showing Richard Nixon giving a moving speech following the failure of the moon landings and the loss of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who had been abandoned and would die there.  Apparently the draft of the speech was genuine; it had been written to be delivered if the moon landings had failed, but it was skilfully dubbed over a video of Nixon delivering his resignation speech.  Even knowing it was fake it was difficult not to believe as the lip synchronisation seemed perfect.

The other exhibitions were one entitled  'Liquid Gender', and my main shot is from 'No simple word for time' which drew on lots of influences from North American native art.  I loved the bright colours of this display in particular.  The narrative on the wall is 'The land is speaking; are you listening?'

Not all to my taste and some of it quite challenging but that is exactly how art should be, in my opinion.  And after viewing the exhibitions there are some wonderful pieces to view in the static collection including my favourite; Standing Woman by Giacometti.