Art installation that transports viewer to the other side

The immersive contemporary art installation comes to Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery from today, to transport visitors from the hectic pace of the city to the reflective calm of the coast.

A major work on loan from Tate, Ian Breakwell’s large-scale video projection The Other Side (2002) goes on show in the South Yorkshire gallery today until January 2.

In 2000, acclaimed British artist Ian Breakwell spent time creating work at Bexhill-on-Sea’s De La Warr Pavilion, the town’s iconic Modernist arts centre. The Other Side was filmed on the Pavillion’s upper landing, looking out across the exterior balcony to the sea and horizon. The installation features footage of elderly couples slowly waltzing against the setting sun coupled with Franz Schubert’s Nocturne in E-flat Major (Op.148), interwoven with the noise of gulls and crashing waves. The film’s imagery combines with the dramatic soundtrack to create a reflection on life and mortality.

Ian Breakwell, who died in 2005, said of the piece: “The continuous motion of the camera moving smoothly backwards and forwards on its track, coupled with the slow, haunting intensity of Schubert’s music and the sound of the rhythmically lapping waves is intended to induce a hypnotic, trance-like mood of disorientation in the viewer.”

Breakwell established an impressive international reputation throughout the second half of the 20th century for his multi-media work, which spanned everything from painting to film and collage.