SENSING SPACES
I recently went to the Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Here seven architectural practices have transformed not just the Royal Academy but also our perception of space and the potential for unexpected experiences of our built environment. Curator Kate Goodwin revealed that these works ‘explore the essential elements of architecture’ and simultaneously connect with the academy’s interior. When experiencing the exhibition myself, I felt a heightened awareness of the sensory importance of architecture within our lives. We often discuss the built environment in social and political terms rather than looking at its emotional and psychological effects too.
During my visit, I was reminded again of Jane Rendell’s discussions surrounding ‘critical spatial practice’, a term that allows us to define large-scale works that often transgress the limits of art and architecture, engaging with both the social and aesthetic. Rendell has also argued that artworks which engage with the ruin are in a position to be ‘critically productive and provide the potential for new and different futures’.
At present I’m exploring ways in which the ruptured innards of the building can occupy the interior architecture of the gallery. By reducing the site to its physical reality, these materials become architectural remnants of its past but also the potentiality of what built spaces can become. These stacked materials are load bearing the physical and contextual burden of time, site and materiality. Audience experience of space is a crucial part of my practice. Therefore, I’m carefully considering how my work will bring a new way of appraising this existing building in addition to experiencing the site within a different context.
Due to a lack of space, I currently have the materials stored in different areas around the university building. However, over the next few days I will be bringing all the materials together to carefully refine my ideas in relation to space, material and audience experience.
