AFTER the first showing of cheese dreams, I started thinking of more ways to generate work from the dream diaries… I started thinking about creating larger graphs, sculptures from the dreams which featured common objects or themes.
IT WAS HARD… SO I WENT ON HOLIDAY FOR A MONTH.
After I returned from holiday, I worked a lot (August) in the cheese shop, the deli and print workshops… which meant that cheese dreams kind of went on hold, but I managed to get over to Leeds 3 times to work on the project, each time I either got distracted by the sunshine, friends or just couldn’t find a way to move the project on…
I started attending a monthly cheese club in Leeds though, called ‘homage2fromage’ which is really good fun, they have a different theme every month and you get to try loads of cheeses… being a cheese expert and all, this club seemed like a good place to think and discuss the cheese dreams project, and how to further it.
In hindsight, all of the ‘procrastination’ was just time spent thinking about the next step, HOARD HQ itself was a space to observe what material I already had, to test out ways of display and having it all a train and bus journey away was a separate head space… which meant I really had to think about what materials to put in my bag and what I need to do next.
THEN SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED
I lost 3 dream diaries and the exhibition so far in the post. I moved house and started my new job at Bootham School, which naturally caused address chaos…
This project has snowballed… in a good way.
I received all but one of the diaries back in the post, ready to make work from them…
I discovered so much about the volunteers via their dreams, yet the cheeses didn’t necessarily produce similar dreams. I made some graphs and documentation based on the dream diaries BUT the diaries themselves seem to be the most interesting artefact.
In May I received a double whammy of good news which have effected my project:
1. I submitted my project to HOARD which is a year long project based in Leeds, which houses the work of artists who use hoarding to create their work. My project is essentially ‘dream hoarding’ so Cheese Dreams HQ is based here…what is so lovely about HOARD is the idea that the public are welcome to look around and see our work in progress every month or so.
2. I got a year long residency (September start) at Bootham School in York, which enables me to develop my project with a small team of students in Year 8 (which is pretty much the funnest thing EVER)
Paralel to this news Cheese Dreams made its debut at Melanie Alexandrou’s Pop Up in Macclesfield (part of their annual Barnaby Arts Festival) which was fantastic.
I displayed the diaries as part of the exhibition, and they proved to be the most interesting to viewers. The tangibility of the diaries is really inviting, and being able to compare the dreams as a viewer is really involving and creates a lovely social ‘hub’ of people discussing and comparing the dreams.
The evidence and documentation is being developed at Bootham School… which is super fantastic…
