THE ROLLS-ROYCE ART PROGRAMME PRESENTS SONDRA PERRY’S LINEAGE FOR A PHANTOM ZONE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE FONDATION BEYELER, FEBRUARY 2022

• The inaugural Dream Commission by artist Sondra Perry will be premiered at Fondation Beyeler
• Lineage for a Phantom Zone will be exhibited 13 February - 13 March 2022 at Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland
• The newly commissioned work is an immersive audio-visual installation exploring the idea of dreams as a space to reconfigure history
• The Dream Commission is a biennial prize, awarded to inspire greatness and foster creativity in moving image art
  
  

“Lineage for a Phantom Zone marks an important milestone in Rolls-Royce’s creative history. The newly commissioned work by artist Sondra Perry, sees Muse, the Rolls-Royce Art Programme’s inaugural award, the Dream Commission, come to fruition. Initiated to advance the medium of moving image art, the Dream Commission has consisted of a two-year process during which a jury of leading lights of the artistic world selected Sondra Perry to create an entirely new work. I am pleased to confirm this work will be shown at the prestigious Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland, before travelling to Serpentine, London. On behalf of Rolls-Royce, I congratulate Sondra Perry on this exciting commission, and we look forward to sharing her installation publicly, this year.”
Torsten Müller -Ötvös , Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars


Muse, the Rolls-Royce Art Programme is delighted to present the inaugural artwork created for the Dream Commission by moving image artist Sondra Perry. On public view for the first time from 13 February - 13 March 2022 at Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland, Lineage for a Phantom Zone is a new immersive artwork which explores themes of lineage, memory and longing, using dreams as a space for reconfiguring history.

Lineage for a Phantom Zone is an immersive audio-visual installation that imagines a dream the artist wishes she could have had, about her grandmother. The installation explores Perry’s personal history through the lens of dreams, highlighting her view of the erasure of Black history in the American South, and imagining the dream space as a passage to reach sites of heritage that are absent in reality. The exhibition will include disorientating and sensory elements, immersing the viewer and evoking the experience of dreaming. A significant element in Perry’s development of Lineage for a Phantom Zone was a family pilgrimage to North Carolina in 2021 to find the land where her grandmother grew up and worked as a sharecropper, before she was forced to leave at the age of thirteen due to escalating racism in the area.

Artist Sondra Perry described the inspiration for her artwork as originating from “a dream that I wish I'd had, a dream about my grandmother and the land that she grew up on. I'd had this thought that it would have been a perfect narrative to dream a dream around her growing up, but I have never had a dream about her growing up. Actually, every time I have had a dream about my grandmother, she was never in it. It was someone else who I didn't know. So, I wanted to place her in the space of imagination. And that's how it began.”

Lineage for a Phantom Zone will be accompanied by an artist’s book developed by Perry in collaboration with Black writers and designers, including British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien CBE, British psychotherapist Bola Shonubi, British-born Yoruban psychiatrist and sci-fi writer Tade Thompson, and Zimbabwean writer and scholar Tinashe Mushakavanhu. The book will enable visitors to engage with the research that informs Lineage for a Phantom Zone.

New Jersey-based artist Sondra Perry works across the media of artificial intelligence, animation, performance, and video, amongst others, with her work exploring themes of race, identity, and technology. Perry was selected as winner of the Dream Commission in May 2021 from a shortlist of four moving image artists, by a jury of leading art world figures.

Celebrating the latest innovations in the field, artworks created for the Dream Commission can be from any medium in moving image, including experimental film, video, animation, and immersive and participatory installations. Content may be presented in a wide variety of formats, such as augmented and virtual reality. The inaugural Dream Commission is brought to life in partnership with Fondation Beyeler, Basel and Serpentine, London. Following the inaugural presentation at Fondation Beyeler 13 February - 13 March 2022, Lineage for a Phantom Zone will be presented at Serpentine in 2023.

To stay up-to-date and discover exclusive content relating to Muse and the Dream Commission follow @rollsroycemuse. Discover Dream Commission content here.