Beheld

Graeme Miller began this ongoing work in 2006. It involves visiting sites around the world where people have fallen from the wheelbays of aircraft and recording the sound there while capturing an 180º image of the sky.

These fisheye images are projected into fragile glass bowls with the audio activated within the glass by the act of lifting it. In this moment the holder becomes both physically and poetically connected to the anonymous individual who has fallen, and to the colliding resonances of place, geopolitics and history in the global landscape.

BEHELD focuses on a small aspect of the largely hidden narrative of the thousands who routinely die in migration. Through evocation of place and in the gesture of holding, it connects to the few who physically fall from the sky into the peripheries of international airports, mostly in economically fortified countries.

BEHELD was first created at Dilston Grove, London, and has since been exhibited across Europe. Graeme continues to visit, photograph and record places around the world where people have fallen from aircraft; this is an ongoing and expanding work.
The installation can be shown at two different scales and can adapt to gallery and black box contexts.  

“By connecting you so resonantly with the subject matter, Miller offers a poetic interlude for reflection.” Martin Coomer, Big Issue

“An exquisite, desperately moving piece of work.” Lyn Gardner, Guardian

BEHELD has been presented at Performing Mobilities RMIT Gallery Melbourne Australia (2015); Bellouard Bollwerk Festival Fribourg, Switzerland (2015); University of Jena, Germany (2013); On Taking Care Symposium, Queen Mary University of London (2012); Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden (2010), Teatro Laboral, Gijón, Spain (2010), Stephen Lawrence Gallery London (2009; The National Review of Live Art, The Arches, Glasgow (2008), Tarsaskor Gallery, Budapest Hungary (2008), Le Quai, Angers, France (2007); Theatre Workshop, Edinburgh (2007), Rotterdamse Schouwburg Netherlands (2006). Dilston Grove (now Southwark Park Galleries), London (2006). 

BEHELD was originally produced by Artsadmin project and created with financial support from Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation.