I've been thinking about how to take the project forward after the assessment and in particular what work I can make for the exhibition. I feel like I have quite a bit of freedom at the moment to do a work that is not necessarily related formally to my latex works and that is perhaps more spontaneous. As all my work this term so far has been site specific to my studio, and would not make sense displayed in a different space, I must work in response to the Poly and in a very short space of time. I'm looking forward to the challenge - I certainly work better with a particular space, or brief, or even viewer in mind, and work more efficiently under strict time constraints.
I have thought of a few ideas over the last week that are quite separate and largely unrelated to any work that I have done, but which I am really interested in.
1. An hourglass containing dust from the Poly, that would either be engineered to last the duration of the exhibition, or that would be a shorter time (30 mins, 60 mins) which would encourage the viewer to pick it up and turn it themselves. This furthers my thoughts about collecting an environment and reducing it to a single object. Using dust hovered from around the Poly speaks of all the people who have visited the space over months and years. I also like the idea of involving people by allowing them to turn it and control it so that it becomes relevant to them.
I will look into hourglasses online this week and investigate whether it might be possible to make a hole in a glass hourglass to re-fill it with dust. I think it might be quite a challenging idea to execute, and may not be achievable before the exhibition.
2. I was walking home from the studio yesterday evening and happened to glance to my right into the doctors surgery where I could see a cleaner hovering the reception area... dust from a doctors waiting room! I love this idea, it speaks of time in different ways - as well as the dust being a collection of particles over time it is from a space specifically for passing time. I also really love how 'phobic' it is. People usually have a certain repulsion to dust, but dust from a doctor's surgery will have the added connotations of ill people and bacteria. I am intending to go and enquire as soon as possible so I can start planning the work - not looking forward to explaining myself.
3. Another idea that has been with me for a little longer, but has been quite separate from my studio work is to present my old, disused, shrunken contact lenses, labelling them 'Six Months of Sight'. To me they are very significant objects, at one time allowing me to see and to live life, but now completely defunct. It is interesting to think of them as describing time as well - I use them for six months, so six months of thought, of memories, of travel and distance, of colour, of the seasons changing...
I think perhaps I could link the ideas, presenting objects next to each other which would link together in interesting ways, so that connotations start to form in the mind of the viewer. I am really excited about this less restricted way of working, where I can act on spontaneous ideas instead of having to work up to them by researching for weeks. I often find that I have ideas that I don't act on because they don't relate to my current project, even if they are really interesting to me. I think I am feeling more confident to follow these kinds of ideas after hearing how Simon Fujiwara s and Cornelia Parker work, by allowing themselves to encounter ideas instead of obtaining them directly from research.
I am really enjoying the theme of time that is emerging in some of my ideas. Perhaps researching Katie Paterson for one of the writing tasks has had an affect on my thinking and sensitivities towards objects describing time and how ordinary things can represent our mortality.
No comments:
Post a Comment