Model 280 takes the family car journey, a common element of drama seen on TV and in the cinema, as its starting point. In the two-screen installation this mundane scenario is re-ennacted on Dobai’s own terms becoming psychologically and socially charged in the process. Referencing Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville,, the work combines documentary and constructed material to semi-fictionalise a journey out of a city into the surrounding suburbs.  In the installation the powerful feeling of absorbtion evoked by the interior of the car and its occupants is juxtaposed to darkly suggestive images of the passing spaces outside. Using an evocative sound track to unite the two screens, this new film work draws both on art and popular culture references to reflect on how the car has both fashioned and responded to modern ideas about the self.

 This new work brings together two major themes that run through Dobai’s work, which are developed and explored in a selection of other works included in the exhibition. In the recent film work Short Story Piece and a series of photographic portraits (2003-4), various literary references are used to explore the interior lives of the subjects pictured, while other photographic works such as Above the City, Into the Desert, Shelter I and Shelter II underline the artist’s interest in the city as a social and sometimes political space.

Exhibitions :
In The Society of London Ladies, Dispari Dispari, Reggio Emilia, Italy June 2010 Theatres of the Real, FotoMuseum Provincie, Antwerp, Belgium 2009 Sarah Dobai, Photographs and Film Works, Kettles Yard, Cambridge 2006

Articles

From Theatres of the Real LINK ADD

From Kettles Yard Catalogue LINK ADD