Heather & Ivan Morison: An Unreachable Country. A Long Way To Go

About

Heather & Ivan Morison’s sculpture Luna Park was a mammoth recreation of an Ultrasauros — an accidental dinosaur — standing sixteen metres tall and created in the style of American roadside super-sculptures.

In the 1970s, Professor Jim Jensen discovered a set of giant bones that were believed to belong to the largest dinosaur ever. More than a decade later it was revealed that his discovery was in fact a combination of two different species — the Ultrasauros was a fiction.

In August 2010 Luna Park began its UK tour at Southsea Common (it was due to move on to Colchester and finally Cardiff) but on Friday 1 October it was completely destroyed by fire. Although the sculpture has been destroyed, the project’s legacy lives on through the Morisons’ exquisite film, An Unreachable Country. A Long Way To Go (2010), which charts the production of the sculpture in rural Serbia. The construction team of engineers, welders, assemblers and model makers were employees of the Zastava car factory, the main employer in the town of Kragujevac, before it closed. The political and social backdrop to the making of the sculpture in Serbia reflects many of the references that oscillate through the Morisons’ practice: in working away from perceived centres, nurturing an active engagement with the resources and inhabitants of the local area to inform and produce the work.

The title of the film, taken from the seminal Chris Marker work La Jetée (1962), reflects another area of interest for the artists: the difficult tenor of the times. The 30 minute film cuts across factory activity, from the ritualistic preparation of a spit-roasted pig, to the lively conversations of the Serbian team. Often it lingers on the workers’ extended periods of inactivity in the exquisite rural environment — a metaphorical reflection on the social and environmental impact of the current global climate.

An Unreachable Country. A Long Way To Go was commissioned by aspex, Portsmouth to accompany Luna Park. Free (please book tickets from the box office or at www.chapter.org)
The film screening is followed by a discussion with the artists.