Matt Stokes: Long After Tonight

Curated an exhi­bi­tion of work by Matt Stokes (New­cas­tle, UK), at the Malt­house The­atres, as part of the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tional Arts Fes­ti­val 2009.


Con­tem­po­rary artist Matt Stokes delves deep into unique moments of recent British and Amer­i­can cul­tural his­tory and identity

Matt Stokes’ work inves­ti­gates under­ground move­ments and music scenes, par­tic­u­larly the way in which events con­tribute to a col­lec­tive social experience.

The film Long After Tonight earned Stokes the 2006 Beck’s Futures Prize and was inspired by the North­ern Soul scene that devel­oped in the UK dur­ing the late 60s and 70s. Sim­ply put, North­ern Soul was a term coined to describe the dis­lo­ca­tion of obscure up-tempo African-American soul music to the north of Eng­land dur­ing this time. The piece doc­u­ments the re-staging of a North­ern Soul night at St Salvador’s Church in Dundee, Scot­land, which was for­merly used as a dance venue. The mix of real-time and slowed footage of the dancers inter­min­gles with the gilded ornate reli­gious imagery of the church, height­en­ing the con­nec­tion between the loca­tion and the participant’s activ­ity as expres­sions of faith, com­mit­ment and shared purpose.

The two-channel film, these are the days, explores the punk sub­cul­ture of Austin, Texas, which has long been a cen­tre for music in the US. The work was made by organ­is­ing two sep­a­rate events. The first con­sisted of a free, all-ages gig held at a skate and music venue, and the sec­ond brought together mem­bers of sev­eral Austin-based punk and hard­core bands to cre­ate a sound­track to accom­pany the silent film shot dur­ing the gig. The result is a por­trait of a musi­cal sub­cul­ture that chal­lenges notions of causal­ity, orig­i­nal­ity, trib­ute and circularity.