Yesterday I laid out all the unwanted items I had collected from various friends and colleagues to see how many I'd got and how much more I would need to fill a room. The short answer was: 25; lots more. This concise answer then grew into an enormous tangle of panic-tinged questions: how should I display them? what do they mean? how an earth am I going to collect enough to fill a room? why did I set myself this ridiculous task?!
…and breathe…
I set myself this impossible goal as a trigger for re-engagement with the vast social network of people around me. The impossibility of a task that began life as an idea to meet every single person in the world is designed to place perspective on the size of the human population and my place within it; to stimulate my interaction with these individuals as an antidote to becoming isolated, both as a social being and an artist.
As my creativity is driven by experiencing, so my art should be an experience, influencing the viewer viscerally. However, I do not want to create contrived pieces that crassly impose feelings in order to force a reaction. My first thought with the unwanted items was to make a cabinet with a jumble of different sized pigeon-holes that would create a small room within the gallery space, effectively trapping the viewer so that the objects bore down on them through the darkness. In making the installation slightly overwhelming, I hoped to reference my feelings on consumerism and the potential for attachment to possessions to impede on your freedom. Effectively, this would give the objects a paradoxical meaning: statements of reckless capitalism and the human potential for greed that act as symbols of a positive interaction within society, reflecting my concerns that consumption is at the heart of modern society and the basis for most human interaction, a basic human need.
Their display is secondary to the concept, so perhaps simple and cheap would suffice? Plinths made of upturned cardboard boxes to create a maze of objects at varying heights certainly sound more appealing than creating a very expensive, very labour intensive display unit! My inner capitalist and outer perfectionist are clouding my judgement with the thought that perhaps the most polished solution will command the most respect whilst my overarching sense of imminent poverty is desperately pushing the idea that this concept demands simplicity and an anti-consumerist statement…I shall stop by Asda on the way to the studios for a few boxes, and maybe while I'm there I'll pick up some out-of-season vegetables shipped from far away in an unnecessary amount of plastic wrapping.
