Arts Institute at Bournemouth

I have recently completed what feels like my first real exhibition of work. It was a group exhibition featuring work from 20 students at the AIB. What made it interesting was that we were working with members of the local council and exhibiting in such a public place as the gardens in the centre of the town.
I installed a set of five tunnel entrances spread stragtigically throughout the garden to link the different areas and dug deep enough into the ground so that there is the possibility that they continue into the ground, linking up and forming a 'metro like' network beneath the garden. I think the work was sucessful in its location and considerd towards its audience in the sense that it was accessible as an idea and could be enjoyed by the full range of people that would pass through the garden.
I was interested in the feedback I got whilst installing the tunnels, people were reading them as animal housing ect, and how people interacted with them when they were installed, the gardeners had to ask a homeless man to get out of one of them on several mornings as he was using it as a sleeping shelter. I enjoyed this attention the tunnels were getting during installation and people seeing 'workmen in progress' all strengthened the idea of the network existing. I didn't want this to stop and let the work go stale as soon as the entrances where in the ground so I added a level of performance to the work. This involved me and another student dressed as workman and performing tasks like cordoning off the tunnels with red and white tape which suggested something was going on further down the line. I introduced sound to the work with a set of walkie talkies, one would be taken to an area of the garden to record noises while would be hidden behind the first beam of the tunnel producing these sounds as if echoed through the tunnelling system. I was really pleased with this desicion of including the performance, it kept the work active and its this idea of my work staying active that i really want to continue.