Last week I held an event called ‘talking with objects’ which saw me trying to share some of my research with 20 friends, family and (joyfully) strangers who were interested in what I was doing! It was held in a rehearsal room at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where I have been filming musicians. As well as talking about my influences I invited the participants to choose and ‘talk’ to an object. It was lovely seeing how people made their decisions, the importance of trying to get the right object. One person said she made a “panic buy” another was still choosing when others had sat down. We chatted about the idea that it might be possible to find a shared language with a thing and explored ways of creating that language. We ended with our own mini choral arrangement, all talking to our objects at the same time. Everyone joined in – people are brilliant!
A bit before that I went to London and met the brilliant Gary Stevens, one of my mentors. We chatted for hours about the research and how I could develop the work. My favourite thought of the day was Gary’s suggestion that objects are normally created to be used, to be in service, they are tools for our convenience. They are born into a life of servitude and in trying to talk to them we are trying to emancipate them!
As always feel free to comment or get in touch at [email protected]
