This blog contains 2 months of backdated entries as the programme has only just launched publicly. I will begin with a passage from my own outline based on what I proposed when I applied.
‘I would like to develop a large scale installation using woven, bound and wrapped objects in response to Museum collections, location histories and with the input of BME communities accessed through the venue. I am interested in the crossover between anthropology, intercultural identity, social psychology and the metaphor of the woven/crafted object to create intensely interactive ‘live’ work within a public context.
I wish to investigate the ancient ritual of wrapping and binding objects which denote power and meaning within both ancient and contemporary societies, using this as a channel for individual and collective self-reflection.
The objects and their stories contributed would be of personal significance and become transformed through the wrapping and sharing process. These objects would be something the ‘Giver’ was ready to let go of and represent a narrative they were happy to place within a public context.
I would use workshops to explore issues hands-on through textile media and writing, generate the seeds of the finished work with them and then do finishing and structuring work myself to create a major floor or wall work within a large space. I would also consider the second stage of the work to be a live event open to a wider public who extend the piece through offering their own contribution fro transformation.
These objects will speak of ancient and contemporary identity narratives and be a powerful metaphor for the connection between the artist, the space and the community. I would have overall aesthetic control of the work and the wrapping materials used to transform the objects could range from materials which have been donated, found, recycled and selected by myself. The transmission of the memory/narrative associated with the object would be the ultimate ‘gift’ that these objects would represent within the context of the piece. I envisage these donated narratives to be written or drawn and to be wrapped around the objects, as well as recorded onto sound before this was done’.
