Im currently starting a collaborative project with fellow student Krystle Shard. This is the first time Ive collaborated on a project and it came together after wanting to put on a show together where we devise and make new work independantly but converse regularly and work towards a final result which is considered towards the overall exhibition. What has actually happened, through these discussions, is that were going to install three major works which will co-exist to form a complete environment and therefore one completed installation.
There are a huge amount of dis-used highstreet shops in bournemouth. What we are suggesting is that we have re-opened one of these shops after a certain period of time to discover that the inorganic features in the room have grown in an organic manner during the time they have been left. Ill be using an array of non-functional strip light bulbs that will be suspended in a solid fashion and non functional plug facets that will protrude from the ground beneath the lights. These two features will resemble a stalactite and stalagmite growth like formation. Covering the rest of the floor space Krystle will lay a carpet down and re-sew to a greater height suggesting grass like growth. This will be tallest around the edges of the room and completely surround the plug facet formations. There will be an area slightly worn down at the entrance of the room, and a shorter, clearer pathway through the exhibition. We would like to create an atmospheric darkness to the exhibition using minimal halogen lights to highlight the main areas of interest. Around the bulb structures and the plug facets formations there will also be museum style barriers cordoning off the work. On entering the space we would like to build a small isolated area in which the audience would remove their shoes in preparation for the installation.
Although there will be the chance to come and veiw this installation, I see it as more of an event rather than an exhibition. What we would like to do is take samples of the different areas within the work, box them up and have them delivered to a gallery space. Here the boxes will be opened up within the space and be able to be veiwed and discussed in the knowledge of where they have come from. I see this whole process as a comment on how we make our work as artists, using whatever materials we have access to and then how the way the work is veiwed changes when its taken away from this environment and into the gallery.
