The Golden Thread Gallery is delighted to present the new staging of video works previously shown at the gallery by two seminal female artists. It brings together work by Susan Hiller and Shirin Neshat in an exhibition concerned with language, culture and power. Can You Hear Me was first shown in the Golden Thread in 2014 and has become even more pertinent in the intervening years.

The two works, Susan Hiller’s The Last Silent Movie and Shirin Neshat’s Turbulent,have become iconic and have both been written about extensively. Neshat explores cultural taboos through video and video installations.

Much of Neshat’s work examines the physical, emotional, and cultural implications of veiled women in Iran. Her work, which has never been shown in Iran, essentially declares the female presence in a male dominated culture. In her films and photographs, the female gaze becomes a powerful and dangerous instrument for communication. In 1999, she won the 48th Venice Biennale prize for Turbulent,which contrasts a man singing in front of an all-male audience, with a woman singing to an empty concert hall.

Widely recognized as a pioneer of installation and multimedia art, Susan Hiller (1940-2019) was one of the most influential artists of her generation. Since first making innovative use of audio and video technology in the early ‘80s, her groundbreaking installations, multi-screen videos and audio works achieved international recognition. In The Last Silent Movie (2007), Hiller orchestrates voices of the last speakers of extinct or endangered languages. Subtitles translate their utterances while the screen remains black.

The Golden Thread Gallery would like to acknowledge the support of the Susan Hiller Estate and the Lisson Gallery for the loan of The Last Silent Movie, and Shirin Neshat and the Gladstone Gallery for the loan of Turbulent.