ghostfurrowsformeal

Started to create the site specific pieces for MEAL. So far the piece for the settling house has become ghost exchanges - 24 bookworks that are created from joining (binding) two book structures together. The arrangement of two book forms joined together enables reflection on the hierarchy of negations that took place within the building in its former incarnation and site. I was considering how to hang this work in the space and how the fixing could become a part of the work.  I came upon the phrase 'on the nail' and of course it now makes sense to just bang a large nail through the two books - fixing them in the process of joining. The idea being that this would seal the deal - on the nail....
The work for the stables has become gathered furrows a large-scale yet light structure that is positioned specifically to reference the link between the construction of the smock through the process of smocking and the ploughed land worked by the people who wore the smocks. The specific qualities of the melancholy light in the stables attracted my attention. As part of the project unpicking and rebinding I  handled many objects within the collection at MEAL and I felt previous owners of these belongings ever present. The objects surfaces embellished and burnished by repeated handling, their presence embedded within the objects. I thought of the past, the repetitive act of ploughing, loss and the line and responded with gathered furrows.

Physically making it was quite a feat as its 6m x 4.5m made of baking parchment and requires strengthening so that its weight is evenly distributed - or at least going to when it’s hoisted above head height to make a false ceiling.

thinkdesignprint

It’s been heads-down creating the design and layouts for the book that will be printed in a limited edition. 68 pages that have to work as individual pages, double page spreads and of course as a whole – but then I guess that’s what a book is. The text titled working the fold written by Victoria Mitchell for the book is most excellent – picking up and continuing the theme of connections between making and the object. The whole book is now finished and I am about to press the button to print. Meanwhile all the display panels for the exhibitions are in the process of being designed and hopefully will be printed at the end of the week.

Some texts from the book –

Every object in each collection I'm looking at has many stories; each one delivers the viewer new contexts and presents new possible functions. Functionality of an object is something that is constructed in the mind through collective use and understanding. As the functionality of an object can change in the mind, changing our perception of and relationship to the object. Does this in some way physically change the object?

This connects to ideas around transubstantiation, the act of partaking in consuming the body and blood of Christ through eating a wafer and drinking wine.

The objects have a palimpsest quality; the record of their history reappears on the surface like the traces of old texts to be 'read', a memory of use, cumulative palimpsests. And the objects themselves leave their own mark much like the impressions left by the jewellery of Monika Brugger or the work undertaken by Richard Wentworth for Homebase.

thefilms

unpicking and rebinding - the film is a conversation between artworks and objects. The work made was in response to the material held within Suffolk County Council Record Office, MEAL in Stowmarket and The Costume and Textile Collection in Norwich Castle. This new work is shown alongside photographs of some of the many artefacts that have been the inspiration. 
The link is to a site where three films are shown.
http://unpickingandrebindingthefilm.blogspot.co.uk/

testingmeeting

a good meeting at MEAL looking at the show and making lists and considering site specific opportunities and the public events.... it was really interesting to get work out that nobody has yet seen to show the people there - gauging thoughts and opinions. I'm going to create new work specific to the stables and a building they have called the settling house. meanwhile testing the light with/on the paper and designing the layout of the objects in the cases.