Figuratively Speaking is made up of 125 hand made white clay figures (10cm tall) that were decorated by guests/visitors to my peice at the Retold exhibition in Liverpool in 2008. I am currently working on the construction of 13 frames in which the figures will sit, alongside photos of the figures held by their 'decorator' and images of the worlds created for them by the participants in my 'Little World Making' workshops. The frames are prooving to be more difficult to construct than my plans suggested. I want to create small indentations (or boxes) that sink back into the frame, for the 125 figures to sit inside looking out at the viewer who will see all of the processes involved in the Figuratively Speaking project.
Describe Your Identity was an interactive piece I ran at a women's activism event at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool. I got speakers, research staff, academics and the general public to describe their identity onto the figures using black marker pens. The collection of 40 figures will be shown at Mapped Festival. At the moment I am considering the possiblities for their presentation. I do not want to frame or box them, I want to treat them as I see the work - as expressions of people, I want them to be seen together to show how different we are and yet how similar we are (they were all made from the same mould).
Two Too Many was an experiment to see if I could mix street art with street dance and politics! (it can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTGs2YTJRU8) I think I bit off more than I could chew with this one. I am not a trained street dancer or trained in the wonderous art form that is graffiti, however I am extremely politicised and activist in nature. I was trying to create a work that would attract the younger genorations on first impressions and then show them a significant and disturbing truth (in this case, that every week in the UK 2 women are killed by a male partner). I am unsure about the quality of this piece, although I recently heard that this work is being used to start debate at a college in Essex - so I must have created something worth talking about. Again I am unsure of how to present this work at the festival as its large boldness may distract attension from the rather more delicate work in Figuratively Speaking.
GreenLancaster was a commissioned work for a volunteering organiation at Lancaster University. The project was designed to attract potential "green" volunteers to the work of GreenLancaster. We created a billboard on which staff and students could contribute images to the GreenLancaster logo. The final piece is being displayed on campus, but at Mapped Festival I will be showing photograph documentation of the process of the billboard gaining input from participants. I am also currently working on a sculpture made out of recycled materials to go in the GreenLancaster office. I am struggling with the aesthetics of this piece and feel restricted by the material constraints - however, I accept the challenge and will stick at it. I have so far created the main body of a "tree" like form using a glass bottle and a plastic bottle. I am decorating the "trunk" with a broken mirror to hopefully catch some of the light coming into the office space.
Expressing Pride is my most recent work and one that I am very fond of. I wrote about this piece in my last entry, however I fear it may be causing some issues already. As a social and political artist I am very aware that I am "putting myself out there" so to speak, it seems strange to me that I have already faced some negativity when the work is not even on show yet and no-one has even seen the work standing. I hope that its aesthetic beauty and proud comments can banish such ideas... we'll see.
I am planning to build a structure that will help the tent maintain its shape and I will be exhibiting and selling some of the photos taken on-site. My aim for the small shop (the site planned for this work) in the centre of Lancaster, is to re-create the scene - Brighton Beach in an "Arcade" (St.Nicholas' Arcade, Lancaster). I am going to offer pebbles to the visitors to this work, so that they can decorate it and place it around the tent, building up a new beach for the work.
