tweakingthedesign

a day in Colchester at firstsite tweaking the design for the Berryfield mosaic print – photo credits, proof reading etc and then onto the printer to check all is okay as the design is quite complex with several folds, cuts and over 70 lines of perforations. it’s all go in the new space setting up everything from the kitchen, the shop and the first show - it was a real joy to work there - it’s defiantly a place to organise meetings in and generally hang out
managed to get a chance to look at the leaflet of a show i saw at Tate modern last week - contested terrains – a show from Africa that creates a number of narratives – i was taken with a two screen slide show by Kader Attia - open your eyes - on one side images of broken objects including wooden and ceramic vessels that have been fixed with wire stitches and on the other images of early facial plastic surgery from the 1st world war – both before and after images. the juxtapositions created a wonderful overall narrative along with the specific pairings.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/contestedterrains/default.shtm

firstfirstsite

the first public workshop at firstsite – working on the structure and text for the berryfield mosaic interpretive material and artwork. some exciting work with the children and a meeting with the potential printer have moved the project on – got to collate all the work so far and create dummy artwork – meanwhile speculation around the skeleton in the hole grows.

unearthedphotographs

an afternoon in the library at Colchester museum unearthed some exciting photographs which will support the work for the mosaic interpretive material I am working on with firstsite.

the new gallery is most excellent – i was lucky to get to walk around the building which is breathtaking – it really feels like art and creativity have been valued and i was impressed with the detail in the finish as well as the overall vision, looking forward to running the first public workshop in the space next week

extremetimelinefolding

started work yesterday on a really interesting project for firstsite in Colchester – Berryfield mosaic: relocation and renovation. a roman mosaic that was displayed in Colchester museum has been relocated into the floor of the new gallery – just feet from where it was originally dug up. my role is to pull together all the strands of the work so far and create a piece of interpretive print. spent yesterday working with artist Bethany Mitchell http://www.bethany-mitchell.co.uk and a group of pupils from St Helena school in Colchester who have been researching and developing work in response to the mosaic. aside from mind mapping and paper folding there were many strands of discussion around the known and unknown and that for many years the piece was not valued. ideas so far include an extreme time line – to include the material it was made from so that would include 35m of just rock! a piece of print that is an exact reproduction of the mosaic so that you can take it away and have one at home - much like on exactitude in science - the borges short story http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/bblonder/phys120/docs/borges.pdf. a design that has the material from lottery cards printed over the design so that you can have the opportunity to excavate the print. creating the missing bit of the mosaic and developing a whole philosophy and alternative reading of the mosaic much like the museum of Jurassic technology http://www.mjt.org so we shall see what happens.