Separation, Anxiety explores the processes which form and communicate memory and cultural identity. Originally from the north, Gabi was separated as a child from this aspect of her identity and the piece reflects the sensations and perceived memories of this childhood environment. The drawings which are glimpsed, their intrinsic value destroyed through the act of installation, are a juxtaposition of the working class family and the Cistercian abbey where Gabi’s great-grandfather worked and was found murdered. Gabi’s performance, drinking ten pints of Tetley’s, brewed in Leeds, and smoking twenty cigarettes, is an ironic nod to the creation of identity through behavioural patterns. The work is a Proustian attempt to communicate a culture.

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