Origin Interactive: Crafting Space

INCREASING PRESENCE..

‘There is an unseen presence we honour that gives gifts’ (Rumi)

The structure is quite rapidly transforming, generating itself into an iridescent communal poem. The diversity of text is revealing itself – from the simple and banal to the obscure and profound…

People came in waves today – large groups of arts students in the morning who immediately took to participating and were so at ease talking to us about the piece and what it brought up for them . Men whose wives went off gift shopping while they sat and participated and who found a retreat within the blue voile walls. Makers from surrounding stands taking a break to reflect, chat and read the walls which are writing themselves into existence. Children squealing with delight at the white pens that write like snow on blue ribbon and the see- through nature of the walls through which they can play hide and seek…

I experienced a constant charge of social interaction with all kinds of people and realised this is my favourite medium – the energies of the public engaging with the work. I love the unpredictability of how people will react to and engage with it. We have a very tuned-in team of volunteers, individuals who really get what the work is about and intuitively engage with the public as and when needed. They are from textiles, arts, anthropology and writing backgrounds – all areas this piece references.

My gift today was a visit from Stevie Bezencenet who was the MA Media Arts Course leader and my supervisor at Westminster 7 years ago. It was a real treat to sit and talk with her and catch up on our lives, and I realised that it was with her help that I let go of working exclusively with digital media and made the transition into installation work. She was the one who pointed me in the direction of the ‘sublime’ and the ‘poetics of space’. Crafting Space is in fact the first project where I have not used technology at all (apart from this blog!) since 1994. And I am not missing it, because in fact the intensity of the interaction satisfies me as much as any piece of digitally networked art has done. I am enjoying this cross-breed of the handmade, the conceptual and the person-to-person interaction that can only come from having a constant mass of public brought to the work through a Fair like this. And my collaboration with Willow on the structure feels like 'a perfect symbiosis of our two mediums, one could not have existed without the other' (as she expressed it yesterday).

OPENING UP THE EMPTY SPACE..

Last night was the Gala opening…

I think we all experienced moments of intense vulnerability –an awareness of people hovering on the edge of the space, interested and intrigued but unsure of their place in it and what it is for… Some of the questions I could sense and hear were – What is it? Is it free? What do we have to do, can we just watch? What will happen if I step into the blue space and commit to being inside it? And will I be at ease? Do I have anything worth contributing?

Once people entered and sat down we tried to strike a balance of allowing people their own rhythm but providing information and assistance where and when it felt necessary. A good testing of the water. Since it was bare apart from the roof and one poem I had written in, it was a challenging start as no-one wants to be first at the party….but somehow it began to colour itself it slowly…and there was a constant flow of people around and to the space. The handouts and Sufi poetry books seem to be a useful point of connection and transition into the ‘text’ of the piece and its meaning.

The location of the work inside the pavilion works really well. Tt is at the centre /back, in the spine of the pavilion, its backbone – several people described it as an oasis of calm, a counterpoint to busy, intense flow around the stands surrounding it. Also, the contrast of a piece that is focused on process rather than product, though I am very aware we are creating an artefact that will need to find a home at some point – hopefully a public one.

Today, from lunchtime onwards, it started to take off, with a strong buzz of interest and the public seemed at ease with using the space to reflect, write and weave into it. The most commonly asked questions I got were – What inspired this work and what will happen to it afterwards? So, in response, I had further thoughts on how to express this:

It is self-contained piece of craft/artwork, which is being collectively transformed on a moment-by-moment basis by the public and us.

It is a weave but also a poem, homage to the beauty and personal value of objects and the role and meaning they bring to our everyday lives

It’s becoming clear through this that you can channel a lot of emotion and lateral thought through coveted objects -ones you choose to be in your lives, for specific reasons. You can also release a lot of emotional energy through the act of weaving, so a woven object can fulfil an individual’s desire to both connect with and articulate emotional memories generated by objects, and unite them within a common framework.

It is a bridge between craft, art and the (often unrealised) desire of the audience to make their mark in subtle but public way.

There are a million things to do this week and I am working through the list day by day. So much writing, calling, email communication and general list making. Everyone is bringing their part to fruition – willow, Hattie, Raphaella, Katy. I could write about these, but I prefer to quote a verse from the Tao Te Ching which is about the only thing that is calming my very over active mind right now..and has some nice echoes with the work we are about to make public.

Verse 4.

The Tao is like an empty bowl

Which in being used can never be filled up

Fathomless, it seems to be the origin of all things

It blunts all sharp edges,

It unties all tangles,

It harmonises all lights,

It unites the world into one whole

Hidden in the deeps,

Yet it seems to exist for ever

I do not know whose child it is

It seems to be the common ancestor of all,the father of all things.

Seven days to go before set up. I went into the garden and came across no less than ten huge spider's webs, obstructing my path through the space…It is the season to weave.

Am just back from an inspiring weekend course based on Joanna Macy's 'Work that reconnects' – she is a Buddhist, deep ecologist /activist/ philosopher with an expertise in 'self-organising systems'. There was a strong sense of the power of unity and interconnectedness in relation to our attitude to the earth and also to each other
I realised on the walk home through the autumn sun that this piece, once it makes its transition into the public domain on Oct 7th, will be a self-organising system. Poetically speaking, if Crafting Space is a living being, then; the steel mesh structure is the skeleton, the ribbons are its skin, the texts are its DNA and the public is its blood, its life force.
More on self-organising systems later! The final round of ribbon writing (tools, on the fifth tier of the roof) is the work to be done. Willow and her assistant have been sewing together double wall sections and roof sections to walls with wire, to minimise the work there is to do on the set-up weekend. By the end of wednesday, when we do our final session at Willows, the structure will be complete and poised for a second life.
www.joannamacy.net/html/deep.htm