Steve McQueen: Caribs' Leap / Western Deep
October - November 2002
Lumiere Cinema, St Martins Lane, London WC2
Still from Caribs' Leap
A figure falls through the air. You don’t see him jump and you don’t see him hit the ground. He’s just falling through the light.
A miner enters a cage. The cage plummets down, two miles into the body of the earth. He is descending through the dark.
British artist Steve McQueen made what was his most ambitious cinematic installation to date for the extraordinary underground interior of the Lumiere at St Martins Lane in London’s West End.
McQueen’s project brought together two different experiences from two different places – from the island of Grenada, where McQueen’s parents were born, and from a working gold mine in South Africa.
Caribs’ Leap journeys into the historical interior of the Caribbean island of Grenada. In 1651, rather than surrendering to French soldiers, a large number of Caribs threw themselves over the cliffs onto the rocks below. This ultimate act of resistance is one focus of McQueen’s film which was largely shot on location in Sauteurs in Grenada, where this act of collective sacrifice took place.
Western Deep journeys into the physical interior of the deepest fold mine in the world, the Tautona mines near Johannesburg in South Africa. McQueen takes the viewer into the darkness and claustrophobia of the lifts and shafts, the dust and the noise of the working faces.
This definitive installation of McQueen’s work offered the viewer a tough, almost physical, viewing experience within the cavernous interior of the Lumiere at St Martins Lane.
Caribs' Leap and Western Deep are included in The Artangel Collection.
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Special Angels and The Company of Angels.
