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Yenda Carson's installation Channel consists of two elements placed on opposite sides of a long, narrow passageway. One is a series of square panels placed above eye level in a measuring scale which runs from black through grey to white. The other, constructed of methodically broken green and white glass lit from behind by a fluorescent bar, resembles both a frozen wave and, in height and colour, a hedgerow. Both parts deal with two basic elements of painting- light and space.
The title, Channel, gives a clue to interpretation of the work. Amongst a number of definitions, "channel" can mean (literally} "a piece of water joining two large pieces" and (metaphorically) "a medium of communication, an agency". The viewer, situated in the passageway, thus provides the link between the two separate parts of the work. The work is incomplete without the viewer, who is subjected to conflicting experiences by this complex and subtle installation.
The glass construction, appearing both threatening and beautiful, suggests a link to Edmund Burke's conception of the Sublime, which influenced the Romantic painters of the nineteenth century and much subsequent landscape painting. Burke's theory comprises a dialectic of pain and pleasure, according to which the experience of a sublime scene (often a natural phenomenon) gives a feeling of danger mixed with intense pleasure. Any object or scene can be sublime, but the experience is dependent upon the viewer occupying a position of safety without being aware of this; if the object is too close or too far, the feeling of pleasure disappears. In addition, familiarity with a scene robs it of its sublime element, as the sublime must always be "greater" than us, must stand over