For Frieze Sculpture 2024, London-based multidisciplinary artist Fani Parali presents two monumental sculptures and their accompanying performance, titled Aonyx and Drepan. The sculptures are comprised of two steel armatures from which the performers, or hybrid creatures, ‘sing’ to each other in The Regent's Park.
In this video for Frieze, Parali describes the layered processes behind her ‘lip-sync opera’ – synthesising writing, mask-making, voice and sound to create a hauntingly otherworldly musical entity. ‘I feel that it [the recorded voice] exists before and after everything else, and the performers then become like channels, like mediums for these voices to come through them.’
Like Charon traversing the river Styx, Aonyx and Drepan represent gatekeepers guiding the viewer from one temporal zone to the next. Parali’s practice is inspired by ‘Deep Time’, the 18th-century timescale used to plot non-anthropocentric geological events. In this ecologically destructive era, the work is a portal by which to view the vastness of geological time and think of ourselves as guardians of this epoch.
Performances of Parali’s piece will be taking place throughout Frieze Sculpture, and are open to all on the following dates:
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Sunday 29 September: 1pm, 3pm and 5pm
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Wed 9 October: 4:30pm and 5:30pm
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Thursday 10 October: 1pm, 3pm and 5pm
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Saturday 12 October: 1pm, 3pm and 5pm
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Sunday 13 October: 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm
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Sunday 27 October: 1pm and 2pm and 3pm
