I normally keep my blogs here on artists talking to a narrow, time-limited period to fit in with being in residence somewhere, however, I’ve found that there’s lots of threads of work that need finishing and developing from my month in Shanghai. So I’m going to keep writing for the time being.
I’ve now been home for nearly a month, although Christmas has taken a chunk out of the actual time to make much further work. I have however made the following progress:
– 3 collages that use strips of paper coated in graphite (and metallic tape, but that was less successful), lined up next to each other, and stretching vertically up the paper. I’ve made these to work through how I want the ‘Architecture of Stairs’ videos to look. I quite like them as drawings in their own right too – I plan to frame them up.
– A collage using self adhesive arrows on top of a map of Shanghai. The map itself has lots of little arrows on it – I think they are to indicate traffic direction – but there’s loads of them. I think I’ll also frame this up as a little piece of work. It’s also a study for a series of photograms that I’d like to make. More on those as they progress.
– I’ve been to see my friend Gareth Houghton who has shared his After Effects editing skills (he edited this work in 2010 for me). I’ve started playing with the videos for the Architecture of Stairs work. It’s resulted in this updated version of the video: http://www.claireweetman.co.uk/shanghaigallery_sta…
– I’ve been sat with a calculator all morning, going through some statistics that I got from the museum of urban planning in Shanghai. And I’ve drawn some diagrams representing per capita living area in Shanghai, and how it has increased in spite of the increasing population. I’m quite pleased how the boxes I’ve drawn seem to reflect the skyscraper-isation of the city over that time. Make me feel that the piece of work is heading in the right direction.
– I’ve been to see the William Kentridge print show at the Bluecoat in Liverpool and also to the ‘Tracing the Century’ show at Tate Liverpool, where I took some time to watch Kentridge’s animations (Mine, Felix in exile, History of the main complaint). It’s made me think about how the video that I’m trying to make for Architecture of Stairs needs a narrative to it. The Kentridge films are aesthetically and technically interesting, but they are also moving because of the story that they tell.
– I’ve been making a template for display boxes for the pinned collage works. A bit of a play with a LED from Maplin has resulted in a better lighting solution than standing next to each work with the flash from my smartphone. I’m thinking of getting the boxes laser cut in plywood and then sprayed black,
Ooh, and Christmas has brought a selection of further reading – I’ve now got Lefebvre’s ‘Rhythmanalysis’, which is a longer work than the essay I was reading in Shanghai, plus the tome that is ‘The Production of Space, which I think I’ll be dippling in and out of. Plus a Psychogeography book by Merlin Coverley, the Pina Bausch DVD and Kentridge’s Traces book of prints from MOMA which is a beauty.
I’m thinking that I’ll need to set myself some deadlines for making work to ensure that I get on with the work that is underway, as I can forsee that balancing making this work with the freelance work and general admin that will start next week will be tricky (although at the minute the creative work is winning hands down over a backlog of admin)
