Pleasure Island and Black Pleasure at Eastside Projects, Birmingham

Heather and Ivan Morrison, Pleasure Island.
 Image courtesy Eastside Projects, Birmingham.

Heather and Ivan Morrison, Black Pleasure.
 Image courtesy Eastside Projects, Birmingham.

Heather and Ivan Morrison, Black Pleasure. Courtesy Eastside Projects, Birmingham

Heather and Ivan Morrison, Black Pleasure. 
Image courtesy Eastside Projects, Birmingham.

Visit eastsideprojects.org for further information.

Response by Nick Balmforth

Until the Autumn of 2013, a stalwart of Eastside Projects had been Heather and Ivan Morison's Pleasure Island. Having originally been commissioned for the Wales Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, it was then adapted for Eastside Projects. During its five year stay there, the space was used primarily as an office and kitchen space. That is until it was brought into contact with another of the Morisons' works, Black Cloud. It then emerged reconfigured as a new and ongoing social space at the gallery in the form of Black Pleasure, a scorched wood canopy-like structure, that measures over five meters high.

Black Pleasure and Pleasure Island, like certain other works at the gallery reflect an innovative approach to the space's programming. Pleasure Island did and Black Pleasure does exist independently of any specific show. As longer term works like these are allowed to slip into the fabric of the space, they can be understood in varying ways against the flow of shows and events taking place. In addition though, Black Pleasure like Pleasure Island is a genuinely used space, a site for socialising and performance. The combination of this longevity and of the spaces' genuine use allows Pleasure Island and Black Pleasure to have their meanings determined over time, by and for those who actually use them. 

As such, both spaces focus on the gallery itself, specifically on the actual patterns of interaction and meaning making which take place within it. In Black Pleasure this focus on the gallery is increased by the structure's formal openness, which allows the rest of the gallery to always be visible from within the space. Furthering this, Black Pleasure was made from trees from the same wood as Pleasure Island, a connection that again foregrounds Eastside Projects via a reference to its past. The fact that traces of Pleasure Island clearly remain in the familiar scattering of the coloured windows overhead in Black Pleasure also adds to this emphasis. Also, Black Pleasure is linked to its predecessor by the way it is similarly situated at the back of the gallery. Therefore a situation is created where previous patterns of use now intermingle with current interactions in the space. One site is overlaid onto another and so the gallery is presented as a functional environment with its own immediate history made explicit. Furthermore, the act of transforming one structure into another like this evokes biological processes, offering naturalistic metaphors for the functioning of the gallery. 

There is here an interesting reflection on the performative qualities of everyday interactions in the gallery. The eccentric geometry of Pleasure Island and the fantastical dark spikiness of Black Pleasure gives the sense that to occupy the spaces is to occupy a theatrical stage-like environment. This suggests that in activities like talking, eating and meeting others, people play their own roles on the stage. However, this is not an examination that conceives the gallery as a bubble; Black Pleasure looks outwards just as much as it looks inwards. The way in which it sharply opposes its surroundings prompts imaginings of where it could have come from, what kind of place would make the structure look at home? This is enhanced because - as the gallery's website reveals - the shield-like Black Pleasure has its footing in various architectures from across the world. These are architectures that respond to emergencies or climactic events, making Black Pleasure resonate with today's environmental consciousness. These perspectives in turn reflect back on understandings of the gallery. Ideas of shelter resonate with the idea of an institution that is constantly and consciously reinventing itself to thrive in unforgiving conditions.  The bold formal qualities of both structures also signal an optimistic look at the gallery. Through Pleasure Island and its subsequent transformation into Black Pleasure we see a microenvironment, and by association a whole gallery, which looks both inward and outward as it continues to evolve.

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