In Process Residency – Day Three
Stephanie Douet, The Queen of Hungary Project Space, came into the room today to leave her preferences imprinted on the arrangement. She lauched into shifting and adding and subtracting works, moving the emphasis away from bunkers and WW2 towards the Iranian influences. The House-Bunker stayed of course – concrete too heavy for me to contemplate ever moving it again, ever, but was added to. The posters also remained in poition, but other than that it was all change.
The addition of the projected video today lifted the room somewhat, although I coudn’t get the thing to loop this time.
A very tiring day with lots of lifting heavy things, but also much thinking, which can also be tiring.
Here are some images of the shifting space taken throughout today. Tomorrow there is another change and then some guests arrive – but which incarnation should they see that’s the question.
Dominique Rey
IN PROCESS RESIDENCY – Day 2
This morning I placed the House/Bunker/House on the concrete blocks for the first time (carefully on some grey felt) and tried the fluorescent acrylic rods. Whilst there are no where near enough of them yet and they could do with being rather thicker, the light gathering works in a rather magical way, placing illuminated yellow spots on the dark interior. That also means I will have to work out another way of fixing them in place as the inside is too good to miss.
Nicola Naismith from Satellite Artists came to the space this morning and we had a meaty discussion about the placing of the work. Under her direction I took a substantial amount of material out of the space, clearing the view and perhaps visually cleaning it. Tricky to make just one cohesive, pared-down ‘show’ in the one room as there were two or three shows hidden amongst the mass of stuff. There was a big chat about the ‘lace that has still not been turned into the work it was supposed to be,’ and the nature and qualities of working with lace.
I spent the afternoon consolidating the changes we had made and later talking to Stephanie about work she has made for Sinopticon. Day 2 ended with me enjoying taking pictures of the sunset reflected in the glass piece Bagh I Tut.
Dominique Rey
IN PROCESS RESIDENCY -Day One
A back-breaking morning lugging chairs and concrete blocks to and fro, an afternoon of moving pieces of glass and metal. So lots of movement and not much sitting and thinking, but I wanted to get a mass of objects into the space early on so that I could then spend time moving them around.
The three pieces of corrugated iron Nissen hut and the rusted struts from the back of the studio building look very much at home but are problematic to secure in a safe but temporary manner – no rivets. They describe three great rusty arcs through the space and tie in with the bunker themes.
I borrowed some wallpaper paste to put the new A0 stamp posters up, but decided initially on a less permanent fixing until I’m more sure of positioning. As the light faded I switched on the builder lights to have an initial look at the shadows.
A mushroom cuppa soup from Stephanie for lunch and also a croissant. Now (8.30ish) quite tired, I’m uploading a series of photos taken throughout the day of the movement of objects in the space. I’m also going to put stuff onto my personal blog each day of the residency: http://cyrusgarden.blogspot.com
Dominique Rey
Stephanie Douet is in her studio working long days at the moment, finishing several sculptural works for a deadline in a few weeks time for Sinopticon. She’s been researching chinoiserie and making the work for what must be 2 years now. The sculptures will be taken to Plymouth’s Saltram House, a National Trust venue, but the Sinopticon show (curated by Eliza Gluckman) is also at Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth City Museum and Gallery and Plymouth College of Art & Design. www.sinopticon.org
Here is a rather lovely polaroid I took of the artist pretending to be at work. I’ll take her a piece of cake to stoke up the sugar levels when I go in tomorrow morning to start my five day residency in the Project Space.
Dominique Rey
Curator Caroline Fisher, fresh from her talk at the Project Space last week sent The Queens of Hungary this nice card. We like receiving post like that.
Dominique Rey
