Shot in the terminal building at Stansted and at Trabzon airfield in Turkey, Ergin Cavusoglu’s ‘Point of Departure’ was a multi-screen installation that succeeded in capturing the equally multi-faceted experience of passing through the vibrant, often dislocating hubbub of the contemporary airport space. Into this quintessential ‘transit zone’, crowded with passengers and echoing with information, Cavusoglu smuggles a subtle and illuminating sub-text about the power and significance of translation — while X-ray machines scan the endless lines for anything dubious and out-of-place, Cavusoglu’s international travellers are themselves on the look-out for familiar patterns, seeking fleeting moments of contact and affinity within the airport’s complex field of meaning. Shuttling backwards and forwards between two contrasting points of origin, between fast-track, first world Europe and a place at its outermost edges, ‘Point of Departure’ is a vivid portrait of modernity that, like the airport itself, is a platform for intercultural insight and exchange.

Co-comissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art.

Supported by Arts Council England and The Henry Moore Foundation with additional thanks to Haunch of Venison.