THE highly innovative multi-media artist Derek Eland is showing his ground-breaking Being Human at Base Camp exhibition at Cumbria’s award-winning arts centre, Rheged.
Derek was the first artist to undertake a six-week residency at Everest base camp during the 2016 April-May summit season, a year on from Everest’s devastating earthquakes.
Running from April 29 until July 2, his Being Human at Base Camp exhibition offers a dramatic vision of the emotions, sacrifices, anxiety and psyche of the drive to climb the highest peak on earth.
The thought provoking, multi-media exhibition in Rheged’s spacious gallery records the lives of the temporary community of 1,000 people, preparing to climb Everest.
At the heart of the exhibition is the Diary Room tent, where climbers recorded their raw and confessional handwritten postcards, videos and stories that form the basis of the exhibition, uniting film, photography and the written word, giving a thought provoking experience of what it’s like to be ‘human’ in the harsh environment of base camp.
Carlisle-based Derek - who was official war artist embedded with the British Army in Helmand, Afghanistan in 2011 - said that the new exhibition explores the emotions, sacrifices and determination it takes to climb the highest peak on earth: "For me the project was the most demanding and intense I’ve ever undertaken and left me exhausted, both mentally and physically. Some of those who wrote their stories went on to die on the mountain and these are their last words.”
Derek also used various cameras during his time there, including a 1923 Kodak camera similar to that used by Mallory and Irvine in 1924, to record through film and photographs the unique place that is Everest base camp.
The exhibition includes four films, each revealing various aspects; from melting glaciers, the Puja ceremony and Derek’s own video diary to the story of Chetna, a member of the expedition team Derek stayed with.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new book written by Derek which includes copies of a selection of the handwritten postcards, extensive photography and his own account of his six-week stay.
Rheged Centre is located just off the M6 at junction 40.
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