It is silent and I am sitting in front of the window watching a light, almost imperceivable, snow fall. There is a bank of old cinema chairs and a projector here in my room – traces of last night’s presentation of Fenu’s film. On my way to the kitchen I saw that some of the objects that I had arranged in the windowsill at the end of the corridor had fallen – not surprising they were rather precariously balanced. The kitchen is a mess. Last night was a success!
I think that everyone is pleased with how the evening went – a slow start that gradually become a relatively good size crowd that engaged with the works and with us, some of whom followed us in to town for a late night drink. It is going to take take time for me to think through and reflect on the evening … actually I feel as though I want thoughts and reflections to come to me in their own time … rather than actively seeking to call them up. One thing that I can say now though is that I am very pleased that I made the last minute decision to make a piece that had I had almost not dared to do for fear of it not working and me becoming terribly disappointed.
The piece was quite simply to place tea-light candles in a number of ’windows’ in the abandoned building that Sorcha, Kristjan, Lidija, Fenu, and I had explored over a week ago. I choose to place candles in nine of the large square apertures on each of the second, third, and fourth floors of the four floor building. The nine illuminated window holes corresponded to the nine windows of the fifth-floor room where Sorcha and I were exhibiting in this building. At just before 6pm I borrowed Lidija’s head-torch and headed over to the dark shell of the building and them methodically went from room to room – starting at the top left hand corner. I brushed away the centimetre of soft snow that sat on the bricks and placed a lit tea-light in a white paper cup in the middle of the window hole. My work there complete I came back to the main building, took off my coat and boots and very tentatively went over to the window to see if the installation … intervention(?) … was visible. The reflections in the double glazed windows made it difficult to make out the rows of tiny pricks of light several hundred meters away – if I had not know exactly what I was looking for I could not have seen it. However if I opened the openable portion of the window and turned my head a little to the left the pattern of lights was bright and clear. The piece took on an unexpected intimacy as I invited first Sorcha and then visitors to the window which I opened for them. As the number of visitors grew they took it upon themselves to invite their friends to the window which they then opened or was left open between a group of visitors.
For me the piece worked in many different ways – it evoked both formal and personal responses. For all it’s simplicity it significantly expanded the size and scale of the presentation/exhibition, it created another type of spatiality. The tiny glowing forms of the cups appeared to float in the darkness – indicating the presence of something not visible. It recalled the reassurance of seeing the lights of home on a winter night as much as it recalled the flicking candles of vigils and cultural commemorations. It was at once comforting and melancholic. As the evening drew to a close the candles extinguished and the lights died.
In the taxi home from the bar Kaspars said again how much he liked the piece, and that means a great deal to me. I want to acknowledge here Sorcha’s simple and definite encouragement – without even knowing what my ’last minute thing’ might be. In between these two distinct moments I can possibly identify … distill(?) what this residency has given me … restored in me … and that is quite simply – faith.
