It’s been an extraordinary month in terms of physical work in the studio on the gifts. I now have all 999 objects, and some of the most moving came in the final few weeks …I made a decision a while ago not to disclose much about the objects submitted in any detail ,as it feels like the gallery space will be the legitimate place for proper disclosure, but the poetic and moving nature of some of the final items make it hard for me to do this…so I may post up something soon with a few pointers as to the emotional scope of some of the items given.
The objects are now all laid out on a paper grid on the studio floor. (see image) The museum apprentices, Rosie and Casey, have been logging all the cards and we have been trying to locate stray numbers with displaced objects for the last few weeks. I became totally obsessed with getting the database of objects to numbers accurate, it felt like an injustice to mismatch anything as inevitable a few things had lost labels etc. But this has eaten up a lot of time and I will be spending most of this week finalising the design on the floor grid done by raphaell, then turning the grid into a map for the installing process, with outlines on objects and their numbers and position marked out carefully. Then into 50 bags, one for each line , ready for collection on January 5th when they go into a special museum deep -freeze in Birmingham for a week, to kill off any bugs and make them eligible for exhibition.
It feels like a lot of this whole year has been taken up with not just the physical but the emotional processes surrounding this project,.others and my own. I first had the seed idea for this 7 years ago. Today is the 5th anniversary of the death of my mother in the Asian tsunami and it’s the only day in a long time when I have felt completely unable to tap into the creative power of what came from living through that experience and ride its energy. I realise that it’s the art have made from it that has kept me in balance. Today I decided to just lie low –no big rituals or hosting like I have done in the past to mark the event. And yet I feel totally vulnerable and unable to function, very much ‘in my child’ (and unwilling to mother my own children today with any degree of effectiveness..). I guess this blog entry is the most creative thing I will do today (I wrote from my bed) and that, in fact, it’s important to fall apart occasionally, with no idea of how to manage or channel what is arising. To feel the deep sadness, the intense flashes of grief and anger, then let go as much as is possible until calm seas return.
