lastbookinthecityassessments

The Last Book

the assessments at Camberwell went well with some exciting work to look forward to – the final show looms with talk of room organisation already in the air. got back to hear that i have been accepted/chosen to be a part of the series of Talking City’ Com:missions and that the installation of The Last Book is now in the foyer of the Zentral Bibliothek of Zurich. the talking city idea is an attempt to do something quick and immediate.
the application letter is below –

I am drawn to this projects immediacy. I have been making work within the public realm for some time. This work often involves extensive public consultation with user groups and steak holders, negotiations with engineers and planners alongside acknowledging health and safety, maintenance and various design procedures and codes. This process alongside the timescale – usually taking up to a year to come to fruition steers the work to be of a certain kind.
The work I leave behind has a certain degree of authority because of the process’s and structures that it evolves from. It would be interesting to make work without the support of these systems, to see if the work I create has integrity from both a conceptual and aesthetic position and if it can stand ‘alone’ without the joint crutches of consultation and bureaucracy.
I work at Norwich University College of the Arts and enjoy my job there but I think the rest of Norwich asks itself - What’s an art college for? What is an art education? What do we do in that building?
I would like to make an intervention where the private becomes public. Both the college becoming public within the city and the individuals experience within the college. I think the root of students work at this moment in time can be monitored by their relation to the research they are engaged in. I would like to spend the day making visible the books taken out by students from NUCA library to the general public of Norwich.
This intervention would present the range of interests and activities undertaken by the students to the wider audience of the city and the different courses within the University.
I would do this by taking the electronic output from both the self service and desk service and writing on chalk boards on the street the titles of these books.I believe this would develop a connection between the city and the university and a wider discussion about the role of the arts student.

adayinlondon

pollarding around the tate

an interesting day in London - spent the day catching up on a few things that i have been meaning to see - chris offili and henry moore at the tate and some of the 100 objects at the british museum, but the main thrust of the day was to be in a group photo taken by Faisal Abdu’allah and Simon Periton at camden arts centre celebrating the residency scheme. it was interesting to meet a range of artists, all of whom had a different take on their residency experience. tomorrow its assessment day on the MA Book Arts course at camberwell

fasterthansoundandwalking

a weekend of faster than sound and walking - the installation at the hush house on Bentwaters and the evening at Snape rounded off a spring weekend.

exhibitionatdragonhall

i missed the private view of we are the history of textiles due to a raging sore throat - but spent a positive day on thursday hanging the work and running tutorials for year 2 MATC in the space. it was interesting to work with the space – finding areas that enhanced the work in some way or at the very least made the work make sense.

showthesymbols

the Moulsham street project in Chelmsford moves on a pace – the symbols option has been not been taken forward so I have over 300+ symbols that I have generated which represent the experience of the streets past, present and future to file away. meanwhile the next task is to move the text option on. i thought that i would post a few of the symbols here.

opportunityletsmakelotsofmoney

applying for jobs and opportunities usually involves writing a statement - thought that I would post the latest one -
my practice in general explores the idea of the book; specifically this body of work is an exploration of ideas around a sense of place.
The book as a symbol of power and knowledge can be a vehicle to communicate directly; it is a form that is understood in these terms but repositioning its context and purpose challenges these very notions. The work becomes a question rather than an answer, a collaboration between maker and reader/viewer. The practical aspects of the book form, of disseminating information; of making things clearer is an interesting idea to question.
The sculptural forms are derived from and examine the book form. The work explores the idea of form as a content and manipulation as the narrative.
The work positions itself conceptually and physically between and within the idea of both sculpture and book. The hybrid nature of the work finds its roots in both forms – exploring and challenging both genres.
The idea of a sense of place comes from stillness and silence, a reflective experience of taking time to look, listen and consider the spaces I find myself in and my connection to them. The immediate landscape around my house and the walks I undertake provide a starting point for the work, the unseen and the seen have equal worth when making the work.

thinkingandworking

working on a number of pieces for a couple of opportunities: an invitation to take part in the Summer Show at the Royal Academy – they are having an artist’s book section and want people to take part so an invite arrived from Stephen Chambers who is a judge this year - also trying to pull together something for the show that the MATC students are putting together. working on the 'energy book' ideas – trying to both edit out some good pieces and finish off the work that i started some time ago.

alongwalkalongthecoast

a long walk from Lowestoft to Southwold on Sunday to celebrate birthdays saw a range of environments and space to consider the various projects that i’m working on – from the cliffs at Covehithe - relating to the Arts futures, the textiles as cover, signage as part of ‘health and safety gone mad’ and the moonbase’s at various sites – always an inspiration. i also collected another smoking architecture to add to my ongoing set.

thelatestproject

I have been working on ideas for a project in Chelmsford over the past 3 months with Chelmsford Borough Council and Essex County Council. It is for the redevelopment of Moulsham street, a vibrant independent oasis within a mass of brick weave. Two options are moving slowly forward – street as book - words and phrases collected, created and derived from a wide range of places would be sandblasted into the paving material the words explore, celebrate and challenge the history of the space and its potential. the street is conceived as having ‘booklike’ qualities the words are pages pointing out the history of the street and its wider context within the history of Chelmsford and eventually its place within humanity. the work attempts to explore the connectiveness of this historical moment in time from the global agricultural business that supplies the local shop to the light waves of Colonel Crompton that helped to light the world via the Essex Regiments experience in the Boer War. the words can be read in a nonlinear order so that each time the street is walked a new or different story is read. the process behind reading symbols is that ideas which have been gathered from meetings with user groups and individuals connected with the street, Chelsmford Museum, and Essex record Office have been developed into images which symbolise the experience of and within the street through time. these symbols would create and pose a daily puzzle for pedestrians but each one is linked to an actual event. the idea is that the art is dispersed throughout the street treating the street creating decoration and familiarity but they are also a readable history of the street and the connections that make it the place it is at this moment in time. to integrate art successfully into the Moulsham street scheme and for the work to be successful it has to be flexible and random. the ultimate layout is dependent on the random choices of the pavement layers.