Well, where has all that time gone? No time to update blogs, as I have been busy on the first artists residency at the new firstsite gallery in Colchester, during the summer. We called the collaborative project Precursor and the work is on show now that it is open. Of course that’s not all I have been doing, as I am studying for my Masters Degree at Colchetser Institute. But Blueprint has been moving along too, and the Cyanotype experiments are going well. It is quite ironic I guess to be interrupted from the Blueprint project because of a pressing commitment to another firstsite project.
Context:
Many have commented on time and place through writing and through artwork. Calvino wrote about objects invested with history and Bachelard wrote about spaces. When Bachelard talks of ‘The Poetics of Space’, he talks about poetic connotations that can be read into the physical dimensions and surfaces of the space, as the image carries more than a denotation (Barthes) of that place. Bachelard talks of doors from different perspectives as they become metaphors to launch into daydreams or mythology.
‘And what of all the doors of mere curiosity, that have tempted being for nothing, for emptiness, for an unknown that is not even imagined?’ (Bachelard 1958)
And alternatively he states:
‘. . . a mere door, can give images of hesitation, temptation, desire, security, welcome and respect,’ (Bachelard 1958)
The doorway is a conveyer from place to place in the here and now, and yet may have been so throughout a history of that place a conveyer for many people, many circumstances and the traces may implicitly remain, and yet again these implications may be imagined connotations.
So what can be evoked through the images? What memories will emerge, that of the space or our own memories?
Resolved the problem of projection with an OHP. So the second wall drawings with the chalkline are more successful in terms of scale and relationship to the viewer in the space. I varied the ‘ping’ of the string to create a different weight to the marks made, which works close-up, but also the overall effect at a distance remains quite clean and graphic.
During June and July I worked at the Minories, taking photographs of key spaces, doorways and details. The concept is also better defined now and I worked more on the proposal, and improved the clarifications of the references I used for the initial proposal. The first wall drawing was problematic as the computer projector would not enlarge my photographic images to life size. So I either need a larger space (as if I could pick and choose ) or try OHP. The mark making works very well though so all is going in the right direction. The blue colourised Photoshop mock-ups of cyanotype visualise how the images might look to some extent, but it will be the painterly marks of chemical application that will create the contrast. I have gathered all the cyanotype chemicals now so I just need time to experiment as it was a while ago I last used the technique.
The initial starting point:
Memory is trace, is distilled, is selective, it preserves and yet memory is change. Memory is a process not a document, but re-enacts, recalls and reconstructs. This project aims to use doorways, passages, the corridor, stairs and hallways as metaphors to capture an evocation of the life of a place and its passage through time.
At this juncture when a new history evolves from the preceding life of Firstsite at the Minories Art Gallery in Colchester, a moment occurs where reflection might happen. This project intends to mark this moment with exploration into the spaces once accupied by Firstsite and takes traces of time and presence to evoke a sense of memory.
