Where Do I Stand?

Step inside a world of moving images and sound. Seven projectors wrap the gallery in a continuous ring of poetic, surreal and thought-provoking films about identity, resistance, human behaviour and our place in the world.

Between the films, poems unfold across the walls: short written passages that hold the space and carry the thread from one story to the next.

Blending experimental filmmaking, animation, collage and contemporary sound, the work moves through tension, transformation, loss and renewal, with image and music as one continuous experience.

The question in the title runs through the whole piece. In a world shaped by political, social and historical pressure, the films do not offer a position or a verdict. They move from refusal and withdrawal, through rupture and mourning, toward the possibility of finding one’s own frequency again. Meaning emerges not from a single story but from the resonance between images, sound and the viewer standing at the centre of them.

The poetry interludes between the films were built in TouchDesigner, a real-time visual programming environment used for live visuals and interactive installations. Each word is synchronised with sound and image: the text moves, breathes and lands in rhythm with the music as it travels around the seven walls.

These passages link one film to the next and turn a sequence of separate works into a single 45-minute journey around the viewer.

Not For Sale Gallery is an artist-run space at 83 Smeed Road, on the edge of Hackney Wick in East London, a few minutes’ walk from Hackney Wick station. Rather than a conventional sales gallery, it is a place where artists show work to be experienced.

The gallery has a permanent 360° projection system with seven synchronised projectors, which makes it one of the few spaces in London where expanded cinema can wrap the entire room. Where Do I Stand? was composed for this ring of screens.

For years Yola Kudela has made music videos for composers of neoclassical and experimental music, and these films have screened at festivals around the world. Several of them are shown here as part of the installation: official music videos for Julia Kent, Poppy Ackroyd, Katie Gately and Darren Leigh Purkiss, whose music forms the soundtrack of the whole piece.

This is a screening-based installation, not a live performance.

• Tuesday 26 January: 19:00 and 20:00 (private view at 18:00, by invitation only)
• Wednesday 27 January: 18:00, 19:00 and 20:00
• Thursday 28 January: 18:00, 19:00 and 20:00

Each ticket is for a specific screening. Please arrive 10 minutes before your start time; latecomers may not be admitted once the screening has begun.

Book tickets

• Benches are placed in the centre of the gallery. Sit and let the projections surround you, or walk around the space and explore all seven screens.
• The installation contains flashing images and immersive sound.
• Suitable for all ages.
• Not For Sale Gallery, 83 Smeed Road, Hackney Wick, London E3 2NR. Open in Google Maps

Yola Kudela is a Polish-British artist and filmmaker based between London and Warsaw. Her practice moves between expanded cinema, installation, street art and film. After fifteen years in visual effects, including work on Harry Potter, Narnia and Despicable Me at studios such as DNEG, MPC and The Mill, she turned fully to her own work. Her short films and music videos have won more than 25 international festival awards, and her artwork has been exhibited and auctioned internationally.

See her films · Art practice at yolart.net