Day 3 on site started with noticing some embroidered church kneeling cushions in the general waste skip. They were kindly pulled out for me to photograph. Someone was getting rid of a load of frames and let me take a photograph. I found out they were from his recently deceased mother-in-law’s house. There’s a lot of house clearances and people clearing out deceased relatives’ items. I hope it’s not too intrusive being asked about them – people so far have been willing to participate.
I had a good look around the charity shop to see what’s new and a chat with the staff. They create different sections in the shop for different types of items and create displays as much as is possible: curating the charity shop. This got me thinking about grouping the photos and making a kind of photo essay. Initially on my preliminary site visit I was noticing the yellow of the signage and the giant pepper I bought. Then I noticed a resonance with the washing machine story and washing machine repair book. Today I noticed links between objects and stories of death, religion, old age, frames:
I also did a site visit to the library where my end-of-residency exhibition will be. They have a screen I can use for a silent film or slideshow: a photo essay film of the photos that I will either split screen with text (the stories) or a maybe like a news ticker bottom text panel. This will be a processing of images – collecting and sorting just like the rubbish – before being disseminated or recycled.
I also want to get some prints and a booklet made. The prints I think will be the altered rubbish like the collages and/or the self-portraits. The booklet I think will be a mix with some introductory text about the process too.
I’m still thinking about what my performance on site will be. I like the idea of having the objects in my self-portraits as props, maybe like wearing different hats. I might look at all the collected stories and weave those together somehow as spoken word/poetry. Recycling stories: like passing on folklore about rubbish.
