First day of the second year, we were asked to bring along a box to represent our current work. I was ruminating on what I am going to do during my upcoming residency in the Czech Republic, where we are working on a site specific installation in a disused prison.
I did a sketch of a light based installation idea I was considering creating a visual representation of, but then looking at Joseph Cornell and Jasper Johns work I decided to collate some items that represented what I was thinking in a more analogous way.
Firstly the old box onto which I layered the sketch printed on tracing paper to allow the patina to show through, a picture of the work of Mona Hartoum (Homebound, 2000) which contains the elements I wanted to represent – electricity being conveyed though objects, representing fear, the key – being locked in, wire – the metal bars and furnishings, a video performance piece by Kanghouse (Colchester Arts Centre, Bus Depot, Sept 2016.) Finally a quotation from Lisa Kirk about her work being represented in a perfume containing tear gas, blood, urine and rubber – linking to the idea that the prisoners were never away from the bodily reality of the human condition.
