Lost For Words - My Work

I showed 'Dust From A Doctor's Waiting Room' in a reconfigured form in Cafe Morte's Lost For Words exhibition. I made about 120 microscopic slides with tiny amounts of waiting room dust glued to each, and presented them in rows. Happily there were these wooden plinths available, which happened to be the same kind of shape rectangle as the slides so looked very fitting with the work - a few of us agreed that they worked well with the clinical nature of the piece too. I had several people saying to me they really thought the plinths were made especially for the work because they worked with it so well. After the private view I also received some positive feedback on how thoughtful the work was. I wonder whether people remembered it from the Schism show, or whether it can be identified as a very different piece in this format and within the context of this exhibition.

When I showed up with the work on the first day back I must admit I was really worried that for some reason it would not fit or work with the other pieces. I think because a lot of the work had already been positioned, and they are all very very different to mine in subject and medium, I wondered whether mine was a bit of an anomaly. The plinths seemed to bring it all together, and we positioned Ed's video piece next to it, which worked very well. Ed and I had previously discussed how his and mine are like different formats of the same idea - both showing fragmentation, talking about looping life cycles and with visual similarities.

Photos above by me, photos below by Glad Fryer

One thing I really enjoyed about the work being shown at Woodlane is the proximity to the waiting room from which the dust was taken. I love the idea of it being site specific and with a relationship to the visitors of the exhibition. Indeed in my statement I wrote how visitors might well see fragments of themselves in the work. I feel this makes it more powerful and poetic, it makes it immediately relevant to people and helps to drive the idea that dust is everywhere, all of it once a part of something or someone else.