55th International Art Exhibit Venice Richard Mosse The Enclave

This year La Biennale di Venezia had a special treat in store with The Pavilion of Ireland. Discovering the pavilion on St. Marco, Fondaco Marcello, in a fabulous art space along the Grand Canal was just a prelude to what would be an indelible, powerful, multi-sensory experience. Ireland has participated in La Biennale di Venezia since 1950. ‘The Enclave’ by Richard Mosse is an “explosive fusion of photographic image, sound and film”. The viewer is swept into the magnificent multiple-screen film installation that represents Richard Mosses’ 3- year photographic exploration of the Democratic Republic of Congo. What his work leaves you with is indelible imagery, a beautiful, yet discomforting vision of a world of raw human emotions, landscapes made magical that we might otherwise have turned away from, that challenge the senses and the mind. The imagery is set to an audio score by Ben Frost, composed of field recordings from the Congo that perfectly compliment the strange visuals of a place on Earth that is truly another world. This is a world of war and its atrocities shown in a totally new vernacular. It is every bit as mesmerizing and complex as any “Game of Thrones”, or expose on the brutality of conquering Roman legions or the Crusades, except this is not fantasy or ancient history—it is thoroughly real and very much a part of the present day.

The Story of the Enclave:

“Throughout 2012, Richard Mosse, Trevor Tweeten and Ben Frost travelled in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, infiltrating armed rebel groups in a war zone plagued by frequent ambushes, massacres and systematic sexual violence. The Enclave is the culmination of Mosse’s attempt to radically rethink war photography. It is a search for more adequate strategies to represent a forgotten African tragedy in which 5.4 million people have died of war related causes in eastern Congo since 1998.”

It is important to understand the artists behind this unique work.

Richard Mosse:

Mosse is an internationally acclaimed Irish (Kilkenny) filmmaker. His work draws from the Romantics, Surrealism, psychedelia, punk, and modern military reconnaissance technologies as he works between documentary photography and contemporary art. He seeks to challenge and transgress traditional conventions of war photography through manipulated techniques in situations of tragedy and conflict. He is the recipient of many international awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts and a Visual Arts Bursary form the Arts Council of Ireland.