DEEP TRAVELS Ink, 2016 - 2019

Laure Prouvost’s installation DEEP TRAVELS Ink operates as a pseudo-functional Miami travel agency and is part of a franchise previously seen at MMK Frankfurt and in New York, among other locations. This hypnagogic environment replete with water coolers, palm trees, fans, people at desks, as well as a waiting area and corporate infomercial playing on a loop, conflates time and space, rendering any concrete or psychic destination tantalizingly uncertain. A tranquil voice emanates from the infomercial and is latticed with images of beaches framed by palm trees, scorching sunsets, squids skating on water and aspirational images of holiday homes. Combined, they coax viewers into a willful contemplation of escape. Traveling deeper and further into its belly, tourists can discover the video How to Make Money Religiously (2014),
which premiered at the New Museum, New York, and explores the possibilities of memory and forgetting, addressing the arbitrary distinctions ascribed to power and possession. Prouvost expands her multilayered investigation of the slippages between systems of communication to conjure up diverse interpretations of perception, while considering consumption, desire and the persuasive syntax of Internet scams.

Laure Prouvost (born 1978 in Lille, France) received her BFA from Central St Martins, London, in 2002 and studied towards her MFA at Goldsmiths College, London. Recently she exhibited at Art on the Underground, London; at the French Pavilion, 58th International Venice Biennale; and at the M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, Belgium. Prouvost lives and works in London and Antwerp.

Access the Audio Guide by Magalí Arriola.