One Hundred Years of Industrialised Warfare

I’ve always felt that my installations are ritualistic: that’s something I’ve been veryaware of this week, preparing for ‘Flight’. My 306 porcelain feathers have been sitting in the studio for weeks, waiting, and when I began the week I had to be really organised. Each feather carries a soldier’s name and date of execution. Each feather has to be tied with a length of invisible thread, and wrapped individually so they don’t tangle. The repetitive activity of measuring and cutting thread, tying, with difficulty, the thread, writing names, wrapping carefully, checking off the list, counting…I’ve spent most of the week standing, and tying knots.
It’s a strange activity sometimes, this art work.The concept formed some time back in Spring now has to take form, and it’s not until this week that I’ve realised what a task I set myself back then.
I’ve been through the ‘why am I doing this stage?’ and the ‘I haven’t thought this through stage’ too.(I know that I have thought it through, but I’m pretty tired)
I love what I do, even though (or perhaps because) it throws me challenges – the harder the better, and I think that’s the point of ritual.
It’s a contained sequence of behaviours that bring about a permanent change. I wonder if my installation will bring about any change in the viewer? I’m sure it will strike chords and provoke comments. I wonder if it will seem to my peers to be interesting, odd, redundant, pointless? I wonder if I’ll fall off the ladder when I’m hanging those 306 porcelain feathers, or if when it’s in place it will have the presence I want it to have? All that repetitive activity has allowed me far too much time to wonder, BUT just today I began to think beyond the exhibition to my next work, whatever that will be.That is comforting.