October will see me utilise this blog for documenting, describing and assessing my Orchard Square artist’s residency.
The residency affords me one month housed in what is nominally a retail unit in the heart of Sheffield city centre. Positioned in between Starbucks and Waterstones, my residency aims to confound expectations of another product with highly commercial connotations – perfume. My residency provides other artists with a consultancy service, and the perfumes will be designed as an intimate and direct response to the thoughts, desires and personalities revealed by the artists willing to participate in the process. The perfumes will then be displayed as portraits that capture the essence of artists living and working in Sheffield’s collective communities.
The residency began on Saturday, and as such the first few days have involved getting acquainted with the space. I want my audience to be directed to alternative ways of considering perfume and what perfume can accommodate within a contemporary art context. But I also want to challenge preconceived notions of how artists occupy public spaces. So in terms of displaying work, I want to move away from designing a conventional exhibition and strive to achieve something more interwoven with the consultancy process. Exactly how this will emerge is yet to be seen, but I still have over three weeks to refine the space. Onwards and upwards!
