Begin Again… Closer… in NYL: Planes and Paradoxes of Here and There, and Other Writing, Walking and Water Spacings by Renée Green

This article examines recent video works by Renée Green, alongside previous works, in the context of the solo exhibition Spacing, which took place at Lumiar Cité in Lisbon in 2016. It begins and ends with a focus on the recent Walking in NYL (2016), and Begin Again, Begin Again (2015), respectively, and in between analyses these works’ intimate connections to the earlier Come Closer (2008), Endless Dreams and Water Between (2009), Excess (2009), and Climates and Paradoxes (2005). The article discusses Green's ongoing engagements with the colonial, anti- and post-colonial collective histories of Lusophone geographies, from the perspective of the artist's own affective trajectories between North and South America, Europe and Africa. The analysis is woven around the works’ poetic examination of history, memory, utopia, desire, language and landscape, whether architectural, urban or natural; the inhabitation of and dislocation between times, spaces and places. It highlights the back-and-forth temporality and desire at play in between Green's various works.