So, lately I have been thinking a lot about process in regards to my practice.
In August of last year, artists Christine Sullivan and Rob Flint did a residency at Motorcade/Flashparade and gave an artist’s talk for the Spike Associates. One of the things they spoke about that really resonated with me was their idea of having a ‘speculative practice’. They basically start out with a set of interests with no specific outcome in mind at the start of a project, and that the documentation whether in the form of photos or proposals can often end up becoming the work itself. Rob hilariously described a speculative practice by saying the practice is an animal and the work is the ‘droppings’ that fall out of it along the way! He said there is a certain sustainability in working this way, mainly because if there are ideas constantly flowing, when opportunities arise there are always things to select from.
At the moment, Haroon Mirza has an amazing exhibition at Spike Island, and I attended the talk/conversation he had a few weeks ago. He mentioned his process and referred to himself as a hoarder, that he constantly gathers material, be it recordings or objects, and collects with no motive, often on a chance encounter, sometimes holding onto things for years before finding a use for it. He said sometimes he only realizes the significance of a collected material much later…
I suppose these ideas of process and practice have reinforced certain ways of thinking in regards to how I work. I’ve been able to think a little more clearly about what I need in order to sustain myself artistically, especially without a studio. It’s difficult because I am a hoarder as well, not of found objects but of made or constructed objects and information such as newspapers and books. Although more than any of these things I am a hoarder of images. Finding ways to constantly manipulate and rearrange, use and reuse the plethora of images I collect leaves me with millions of possibilities to select from when future projects arise, which is great but as I’ve found, can also be really overwhelming if I don’t utilize some sort of pre-selection system…
Last Monday I attended a Documentation Day at Motorcade/Flashparade gallery where I brought a load of my work to be photographed by a professional photographer. Because I don’t have a studio I thought it would be a great opportunity to make some new work, try out some new ideas and get some good documentation for my website as well as upcoming open submissions and proposals I may apply for. I even took some holiday off from work in order to make stuff the week before, but my son developed chicken pox which left me with little time to create anything new. Thankfully I have loads of objects and images (and images as objects) made that I haven’t yet used or shown much previously. I was able to take them instead and mix them with some of my older objects to create new arrangements, and therefore new works. Even though I wasn’t able to get more than 4 arrangements made in the half hour time slot, after looking at the photos 3 of them look like fairly strong pieces. I think it worked out really well in the end, and I am really pleased with the results!
With that in mind, I think it could be really helpful to have a space that I can use for a few hours or even an entire day, in order to play around with my objects and take photos of different arrangements without such a tight time constraint. Because my process is so fluid and continual, I am ironically still realizing just how much importance photographs have when documenting my practice. They tend to be how I reflect on a particular arrangment’s potential, whether something is successful or not. It’s sometimes hard for me to see what arrangments “work” and what doesn’t untill I see the photos…There is a theatricality to this way of working, constantly moving things around a room, so a photograph acts upon my work almost like it does when freezing time on a live event. It actually stops my process. While I have thought about this aspect, there is a lot about that which still needs much more consideration…
