I went to Bristol last week.I spent the first day at UWE being interviewed by Mathew Partington for the NEVAC archive, alongside Rosa and David Kay. This was great practice is being precise and clear about my ideas in relation to the project.
I had sent rough sketches to the Museum designer Simon last month with some outline ideas about how the objects might be hung so that he and the model maker Nathan could start working out a structure from which they can hang. We met with Nathan who had done some small mock-ups of structures for my objects (the first 99 are going to be my own objects and hung separately, in a kind of spiral, vortex arrangement.). After some discussion we came to finding a way of having very little structure ’in the picture’ so to speak. I want the illusion, as far as possible, of objects flying through space, with very little else – apart from texts – in view. Unless you look up, where there will be a kind of grid structure from which they all hang.
I love this part of the process, where a solution is found for the physical stage of the work to become possible. Nathan suggested I do mock-ups of objects on the ground (and later from a higher place) to see how much room they actually take up as he is concerned it may be smaller than I think. But today I realised through doing this that the variable size of objects makes for a much larger space than we thought when we were adjusting our calculations and pacing it out in the gallery. I am glad as I want it to have a certain presence, and at 7 meters long think this will be in proportion to the gallery space and to Rosa’s work which will take up a lot of the surrounding wall space.
I also had a second workshop session with the People’s Panel this trip, which felt very satisfying somehow. They had brought objects to the first session which I had wrapped and brought some of them back to show them. This time, after explaining where I was with the development of the work, I brought a selection of my own objects and some materials and yarns to wrap. A real gift and exchange session. I shared the stories behind the objects and it felt good and also cathartic to do this, like laying a part of my life to rest, with others witnessing it. Julia and also two other panel members had brought objects so they were wrapped and entered into the collection. It now feels like the gathering has begun. The postcard inviting the public has been printed and I am about to write a more personal letter to go with it to send to my own contacts. We will see what the abundant but unpredictable universe will bring me ….
