Sean Grattan, still from A Woman On A Mission 2008. Courtesy the artist.

 

Sean Grattan

16 November - 13 December 2009 in the Square² Gallery

A Woman On A Mission 2008
A Man Without A Factory 2008
DVD
Duration: 9 minutes 44 seconds / 11 minutes 59 seconds, looped
Both courtesy the artist

A pair of inconspicuous malcontents each feature in their own films. A woman drifts through a deserted alley leading to a supermarket carpark. A man sets up camp on the outskirts of the city, on a mound of dirt overlooking an industrial area. Both figures seem dissatisfied, though it is unclear if they are rebelling or simply wasting time; lonely, distressed or just tired. Initially disengaged from their surroundings, gradually each begins a kind of a game, briefly taking centre stage in a small anti-comedy that gives their directionless drifting a tentative rationale of its own.

Viewers are left to imagine the relationship between these two figures, and the reasons for their disconnection from the productive lives they may have once lived. Their apparently purposeless behaviour stands out as an oddly dramatic statement in a society geared towards productivity, in the literal and metaphorical sense of the word. Sean Grattan writes, ‘What is tricky about our current situation is the increasing lack of difference between production and consumption, work and not work. There is very little running room left for our experiences to simply exist, before they are designed, packaged and sold back to us.’ The outlook of the films is reminiscent of dramatist Samuel Beckett’s theatre of the absurd: humorous, bleak and bizarre in equal measures.

Filmmaker and artist Sean Grattan was born in Henderson, Auckland in 1981. He attended the University of Auckland, graduating with a BA majoring in Philosophy in 2001. After working full time for three years he returned to university to study at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland. Sean completed his BFA with First Class Honours in 2008. He is currently working towards his MFA in the film department at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and is due to graduate in 2012. Many of Grattan’s recent films have focused on the unclear distinction between ‘work and not work’ and the way this complicates our value as individuals in society. This has lead to a fascination with the fundamental role that narrative plays in organising our experiences.