As Harriet has been writing about on her blog, there is an art project going on in an old factory, in Elephant and Castle, that is about to be converted into apartments. We heard about the project through the Crystal Palace Artists.
The project has been set up by Linda Duffy and she is keen for artist to be able to use the space to experiment with their own work whilst simultaneously responding to the site.
When I first went to the private view of Forensic (the first exhibition there) with Harriet I loved the site. It is the type of space that I love working with and that instantly captures your imagination; it has wallpaper peeling off to reveal grotesque 70's patterned wallpaper underneath, dusty floors, and forgotten corners. However, at the time I had no idea what I would do in the space were I to utilise it or how my practice would fit in to it.
After doing some practical work at the end of term (Practical Work Ahoy indeed!), and chatting to Harriet, I have decided to take the bull by the horns and put something out there; whether it is using part of the time that harriet has been given in the space to try something out on my own, or to collaborate with her.
It is a short sharp project with not much time to prepare (aka obsess, panic, and over think things), and it is for experimenting which I think is fantastic. It really is a great space and am looking forward to trying something out outside of college just for the sake of working.
Just a bit of a brainstorm about some of the things that have been springing to mind and have been chatting to Harry about:
* Using a projected backdrop of an office background. It is to create a ghosted effect, a trace of things that have (or may have) gone before, forever present in the history but intangible and constantly being broken and interfered with by the current activities.
* Creating a fake factory where photograms are the product. This could possibly further highlight the process of photography and relate to the history of the space.
* Using the picking apart of flowers performance, that I did for David Gale's workshop as a springboard; looking at subverting the factory process and deconstructing products.
* I love the idea (as always) of forgotten factory workers that have become stuck in the factory office repeating the same set of actions until they have lost all meaning.
* Once all of the activities/performances are over in the closet leaving it as an installation. A relic, an evidence of an action, that (like everything that has gone before it) has now become ingrained into the history of the site.
Adding a new history to a space-in-between is really exciting to me.
6 comments:
Hey lady, I love this idea of forgotten factory workers repeating the same gestures forever in the dusty disused factory - very aesthetically pleasing! hehe
Haha!
I knew that you would think that! I'm glad you like it. It's something that I can't get away from thinking about (the forgotten people in forgotten place).
It really captures my imagination and you are right I do feel that I would be able to work aesthetically with it (even if it is on a very minimalist scale). Every time I think about the performance that I want to create it appears very dry, I feel that this way I could perhaps work more of a narrative into the work and hopefully stop it being so anecdotal. We shall see.
After working in the space yesterday I think that it is going to be hard to work it into the performance on a large scale as we are dividing it into three sections ( which is fine as we are getting to try out so much stuff so it is better than focusing on one thing at this point). However, we are still managing to work with some other aspects that will go towards my performance which is really great. Projecting onto dilapidated surfaces was really interesting and I love what it says about time in the space... will possibly be able to add another layer, being able to state in another way that the characters have become stuck there??? hmmm
xxx
hey ms bean
the projections had such lovely textural qualities yesterday and think these will work really well with the forgotten, time stood still, deconstructed, delapidated themes....i don't want to get too caught up in them now though til we've sorted out the structure and nature of the performance more and work out HOW and WHY we have the mediated imagery- what's exciting is how when we start to play with the projections in the space and play out the narratives of the performance and am really excited about developing different roles
yipeeee!
x
Yeah I totally agree we still have a long way to go working out WHAT WE ARE COMMUNICATING before we start working out HOW to communicate it! hahaha
It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of it though
xx
you never got over the putty factory did you
xxxx
Nope! It just keeps on reappearing doesn't it!? ... Kind of like the Dead Dog thing that I never quite got over either!
xx
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