Interview with Lucy Harvey
(see previous post for more information)
AB: Why do you work with rubbish/trash/discards?
LH: My main motive lies in collection and from my own need to amass physical mementoes from my travels; the things I collect become embodiments of my experiences of an environment and situation and therefore are valuable to me. What inspired me to use them in my work was the change of context and exclusivity of their symbolism once I had achieved ownership of them and taken them from their source. From this I drew parallels with the contextualisation of museum exhibits and the functionality of objects, and so I play with the visual associations of my finds by reusing them for new objects.
Secondly I am interested in the process of discarding and partial destruction, which I think of as an everyday encounter with chaos and the unknown. This sense of mystery imbues the object with a power and an otherness, it takes away the concrete narratives of an object and leaves us instead with more enigmatic marks that inspire and provoke the imagination. Coming from a silversmithing background I am very focused on the value of process and the legacy of objects, and I use my practice and my own processes to present these to the viewer. I distort and exaggerate these aspects too.
AB: Do you have a preferred term for those materials?
LH: Discarded and appropriated are the ones I use most.
AB: Where do you source your materials from?
LH: Walking mostly, beaches and old Victorian tip sites are my favourite places as they are the best showcase of this chaos and feature things from across the last century. If I am working on a specific research project and residency it is normally through meeting people and asking for their rubbish, I’ve done this with the technical team of the Canal & River Trust most recently, but also a cobbler and a glass recycling factory. Where I used to use junk shops I’ve now switched to ebay – one man’s junk and all that.
AB: What criteria do you have when sourcing your materials?
LH: I think I am looking for the “otherness” of an object, so if there is signs of previous human interaction, or it has visual parallels to themes in my research, or a perceived function that I can re-contextualise. A good example might be the broken bits of clay pipe I collect all the time which all at once carry associations of previous trade and industry, social history, craftsmanship, loss and destruction, and they also hold the uncanny likeness to bone which adds to the narrative barrage.
AB: What processes do you apply to/with these materials?
LH: I use metalwork processes predominantly which draw from my training as a jeweller which, in essence, involved creating structures to house and exhibit valuable objects. They allow me to assemble different finds and bring them together in new composite pieces which re-contextualise the object and explore associative narrative. My work also appropriates processes, mimicking the making behind other hand skills and everyday mending, and I am particularly interested in using these because some of them, one day, will be discarded and lost too. Does that mean I use rubbish processes on rubbish?!
AB: What context do you show your work in? (eg gallery space/public space/internet)
LH: Predominantly gallery spaces but I want to work in a more site specific/ interventionist way in the future.
AB: What happens to the materials/work afterwards?
LH: They have become something new so they are kept or sold.
