I have been reflecting upon my practice, going back through journals, notes, voice recordings, text clippings, images, sketch books and blogs.
I feel like I am wondering back through my thoughts, re-tracing my steps. To re-think the ideas, a conscious recycling and relentless experimentation of ideas.
I often use found objects within my work and make part-objects.
Last year I started to document my collection of found objects with the help of brilliant photographer Rod Gonzalez
“Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Ask yourself about the provenance, the use, what will become of each of the objects you take out. Question your teaspoons.” Georges Perec
This archiving has led me to think about the body as a living archive, which was first brought to my attention by dance artist and researchers Sally Doughty and Rachael Krische
What is in my own archive, what memories does my flesh hold, what scars has my body collected? I draw upon my own life experience already and am inspired by the philosopher Walter Benjamin who considered human life as a material itself;
“In fact, one can go on and ask oneself whether the relationship of the storyteller to his material, human life, is not in itself a craftsman’s relationship.”
So what will happen if I start documenting my own body archive and bring both my object and body archives together? Merge as if they were one.
I aim to question all my objects, in my practice, I intend to question the space they occupy, not only domestically but personally, subjectively. I trace them with my body and in doing so inhabit them, as they inhabit me.
