Fear (part two)
So, the carnage that is represented on the banner. To face that degree of harm, mutilation. To physically stand in front of that so that one's view is filled with it. To appreciate the scale of it. To place one's own (intact) body in front of the evidence of what modern munitions can do.
Of course we cannot feel the response to all that. From my observations so far of how different people respond to the images, it is clear that some are more immediately in touch with some kind of visceral or emotional reaction than others. But I am pretty sure that even those who appear immediately affected are only feeling the outer edges of a very much bigger potential response. Something INCOMMENSURABLE. Something that is building within my self and that is starting to manifest itself in physical responses of which I am not in charge. And I am very glad to have those responses because I would almost be worried if I didn't. It seems to me fitting and the very least one would expect in the face of such unmeasurable force.
I haven't been able to write about this fear at all adequately. But I'd like not to give up and will have another go at it another time.
Biscuit, anyone?
Fear (part one)
Last week and the week before I woke up a few times in the middle of the night with my heart pounding. I was inclined to think that this was the result perhaps of eating dark chocolate late at night. But then a friend, a good friend, suggested that maybe it had something to do with the images on the I.B. (Incommensurable Banner). As soon as she made this connection I knew it was true. But, interestingly, I hadn't been able to make that connection myself.
So, I've been thinking about the response of fear that the banner images evoke in people. Tasha, Fabrica Front of House Manager and I always joke about the importance of the biscuits on our shifts in the gallery. She says she thinks sugar is a necessary accompaniment to time spent near the work. It takes the edge off the shock?
When I first saw the banner itself, rather than the images of it I had seen prior to that, I felt sick and a bit shaky. Now, having spent more time looking at the banner and thinking about it, I think the fear has deepened and is resulting in these mid-night awakenings. At the start of this blog I spoke about fear in relation to sharing with you my Grandmother's Iraqi heritage. This is different: less specific, more general and – perhaps, animal.
I tried to articulate this today in the gallery to someone I was having a conversation with but noticed how woefully incapable I was of speaking about it. I'll try: the fear of death, yes. The fear of looking at such damaged bodies. The fear of imagining that that could happen to you.
I am reminded of being a child at school and learning about beheading as a form of punishment. And that beheadings took place in the Tower of London. I remember that it was inconceivable to me that people would remove other people's heads. And then visiting the block and axe at the Tower on a school trip and trying to imagine the axe coming down and severing the head from the body.
Spent some of Thursday, Friday and today getting studios ready for our open studios event over the next two weekends 25 & 26 October and 1 & 2 November. I know what I want to show. It will be a series of 'banners' which aren't really banners. They are pieces of found fabric with images applied to them via photo transfer paper. I'll show them on the walls of my studio. I like the fact that I don't know what sort of banners they are. Or what they are 'for'.
I've been thinking quite a bit about my use of fabric and questioning it. As a support and with this photo transfer method, it is quite easy to work with. I wonder how I feel about showing a number of cloths. It all feels terribly feminine to me. Apart from my Ingeborg Bachmann piece, which I am very happy with, this seems problematic. But I am going to go with it. I have considered using clothing when I have seen garments that would be suitable to transfer images onto in charity shops. But I have so far rejected the idea of using clothes. So, this much I know, they are not cloths to be worn. Not clothes.
Neither are they protest banners nor interior soft furnishings.
The pieces of fabric are:
a small white hemmed sheet about 100cm square
a white cotton lawn handkerchief
an old faded curtain with a floral print on it from my (maternal) granny's house
an embroidered tray cloth with drawn thread work
a length of curtain lining fabric removed from the curtain mentioned above and which is a very nice soft beige colour
I'm going to show these in my studio space as well as displaying my Peace Banner / Pea Spanner piece and setting up a laptop with this blog on it in case anyone wants to look at it.
I'm also transferring an image of a scrunched up lump of brown parcel tape onto some white museum object handling gloves. The brown tape was taken off the packaging that was wrapping the Incommensurable Banner and was given to me by Michael Maydon at Fabrica as genuine Hirschhorn parcel tape. I like the idea of this throw away material decorating museum gloves that would be used to handle precious or fragile objects.
Note to self
Things I would write about if it weren't so late and I weren't so tired:
What I've not yet said about Hirschhorn's work.
Fear.
What I've been reading about photography's indexical relationship to reality.
Quotes from Judith's article about politics and art (and fear).
Notes from the secure unit.
The impossibility of working with others.
Anti Edo demo today.
The face(s) of political engagement today.
Lots of other things that I've forgotten.
A book I ordered through Amazon arrived today. For some reason I looked closely at the original price sticker on the back and it said it was from Silver Moon Bookshop, 68 Charing Cross Road.
Talk about nostalgia!
