Ok I’ve got three initial ideas to pitch to the steering group, actually i’ve got lots of ideas but many are terrible and others will probably be chucked because of bad taste.
I’m about to start a residency/exhibition in Bury St Edmunds which involves making films from bad thoughts and this is colouring a lot of my thinking at the moment. The show is called Joking Aside and I’m showing several films about death involving. matches, balloons, blutack and alka seltzer tablets. The show opens on 5th May & I’m trying to get ahead of myself & sort everything out.
Anyway, the three ideas (so far)
1. I was intrigued by a series of sentimental victorian paintings in the committee room which showed key moments in the passage of a foundling through the ‘Hospital’. I thought i would quite like to produce an opera of sorts using lolipop sticks and Handel’s Foundling Anthem which is held in the museum. I would also quite like to do a live performance/fundraiser in one of the C18 rooms. I imagine myself behind a screen with the lolipops projected behind me accompanied by a string quartet.
2. I am thinking quite generally about bringing play into the museum which is currently inhabited by more senior citizens. I want to make a series of short video pieces throughout the museum using wandering toys, a slinky on the stairs (where, the guidebook tells us, a child died sliding down the banisters) I am also minded of magic tricks from my childhood. The paper bag & invisible ball, the snapping/mending matchstick etc.
3. I have many automatic cameras which can be allowed to wander filming at random. I wondered about using these to make a portrait of the current governors which could then be donated to the gallery in the tradition of its Hogarths etc.
The curator has apparently been appointed but we are to be kept in the dark until the right moment. When her identity is revealed I should be able to discuss these with her and begin to think about the thorny issue of siting the works.
