Restless Linings 
Ex-chiesa San Mattia, Bologna Italy

Burgoyne, Greig

Restless Linings Ex-chiesa San Mattia, Bologna Italy

Burgoyne, Greig (2025) Restless Linings Ex-chiesa San Mattia, Bologna Italy. [Audio work, Drawing, Exhibition/show, Installation, Performance, Site-specific work, Video]

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6692:125330

'Restless Linings' install view ExChiesa San Mattia Bologna 2025

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6692:125331

'Restless Linings' install view ExChiesa San Mattia Bologna 2025 2

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6692:125332

'Restless Linings' install view ExChiesa San Mattia Bologna 2025 3

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6692:125333

'Restless Linings' install view ExChiesa San Mattia Bologna 2025 4

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Creators:

Burgoyne, Greig

Description/Abstract:

Ex San Mattia is forever a space in a state of becoming. Having begun as a majestic baroque church, it now oscillates in flux without end. Restless linings is to enter the inside of the outside, by this we mean the ever shifting nature of what we see and what we might feel. Commissioned by the regional Ministry of Culture, the show within San Mattia comprises a vast installation that both spreads and rises from its centre, alongside a large-scale projection that descends from its heights.
Restless linings it wrestles with conceptual frameworks around drawing, less to reveal what is visible, but instead uncover what is invisible in its place, in effect an un-concealing of concealment.
The first work is a performance made in the space. The fragility of language and its precarious content collide its outcome projected onto the main wall where the altar is located. As in much of Burgoyne work self-imposed rules determined by site and context make for indeterminate results as result. The material in this case is an Italian daily newspaper with each page joined to the next, with its length equalling the height of the church. The aim of the performance is to get this unwilling material to reach the that height of church. Jumping, punching, pushing, undeterred Burgoyne attempts to get this paper column to do what it cannot. The resulting film projection is inverted, lamenting the incompatible forces of the physical and visual, between what we want and what we get. In an era of inconsumable amounts of information, its endless spectacle of supposed truths and its untenable untruths, this precarious and tense maelstrom of our worlding occurs.
The role of colour plays a key role in many of Burgoyne’s works. Yellow is the only colour the cones of the human eye cannot detect. Paradoxically, yellow is light, sunshine, vision, clarity and illumination.
The second work is a vast installation comprising yellow fabric and 100’s of cardboard boxes. It begins as a mapping and measuring of the site reenacting the gestures found in the frescoes. In this process Burgoyne divided the church floor area into 120 sections each activated by a gesture. The process charts the areas where Burgoyne was both present but also indicates where he was absent by default. For Burgoyne this is drawing as that making visible its concealment. The areas of fabric where the gestures were not present are strewn aside. The arenas opened as a result are filled by piles of empty cardboard boxes in an interplay of presence as invisibility versus representation as that excessiveness of absence. Each rising accumulution determined by the number of towers remaining in Bologna today and the number of gestures needed to conceal the empty space that once was.
Restless linings is that meeting of the expansive and implosive. Like the city of towers or this former church where the works now exist is to speak of that incessant folding and unfolding of ourselves, between a powerful weakness and an exhausted visuality.

Item Type:

Art/Design Item

Date:

6 March 2025

Material:

fabric, cardboard boxes, tape, thread, Live performance, newspaper. Dimensions variable

Measurements or Duration:

Dimensions variable. film projection 11 mins on loop

Funders:

Ministry of Culture, Italy

Locations / Venues:

Location

From Date

To Date

Ex chiesa San Mattia Bologna Italy

6 March 2025

27 April 2025

Additional Information:

Open Thursdays-Sundays 3pm-8pm

Uncontrolled Keywords or tags :

drawing, performance, installation, film, siteSpecific, commission, National Museums Italy

Schools:

School of Fine Art, Crafts & Photography

Related URLs:

Depositing User:

Mr Greig Burgoyne

Date Deposited:

28 Nov 2025 13:52

Last Modified:

28 Nov 2025 13:52

Burgoyne, Greig

Art/Design Categories:

Audio work, Drawing, Exhibition/show, Installation, Performance, Site-specific work, Video

URI:

https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/6692

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