University Campus Suffolk

Up until recently I have been so entirely focussed on this relentless obsession with visual repetition and multiples that I have inadvertently missed the point of what my work is about. Yes I am drawn to this aspect of collecting and want to continue with it, but it is only one element – by now, I feel it’s probably so inherent within my way of working and thinking that I can trust it to be there regardless of how much consideration I pay it.

So, for my work to really progress I needed to delve deeper into the subject of autobiography. I asked myself- what elements of ‘me’ do I want to communicate? How can I explore who I am through my work?

The first thing I realised was that autobiography and memory are inextricably linked. I wondered – Is the representation of autobiography always retrospective? Can an act of depicting one’s life in the present still be considered as autobiographical? I’m thinking that to make a self-referential artwork or a written autobiography involves (re-)evaluating one’s life before hand; looking over significant times, events, people or situations that make you who you are.

Having said that however, I can presume that artists such as On Kawara, Gerhard Richter (Atlas), Mary Kelly and Sophie Calle all took the ‘here and now’ as their material for their work.

One thing I am positive of is that autobiography requires self-awareness. It is a personal search for who you are. This could be a simple documentation process or a deep and profound reckoning. Either way you have to be able to view yourself, know things about who you are, your identity, your place in the world.

“Autobiographers observe themselves and open themselves up to observation by their readers, this equates with looking in a mirror” Steiner and Yang (2004: 15)

This whole idea of being able to recognise a coherent identity for myself offers a real challenge. Initially, I thought it would be easy. A large majority of the work I created in the last two years was, in hindsight, very self-referential. But because it wasn’t stated as such, it left me free to say, or do as I liked.

Anyway, one thing I have established recently is that the activity or process of collecting is not enough. By only changing an object’s context is not sufficient for what I want the work to do. It needs more; more of a narrative, a story, a journey, a process.

This is easier said than done, as the process involved needs to be relevant and help towards communicating my concept- I can’t just carry out any old activity and hope that it fits in with what I am trying to say. Like Simon Starling’s work, the process in making or transforming the object is the tool for communicating his concept. It’s the story BEHIND the object that makes his work.

The next idea evolved from thinking about this re-occurring notion of the public and the private. I wanted to take an existing collection of something that was very personal to me and plunge it into the public sphere. The audience/viewer was at the forefront of my mind during its initial conception. I knew I wanted to include emotion and I knew I wanted to involve this third element of public interaction. I needed to get out of the safety of the studios and really experience a response to a piece of work within the public realm.

Birthday cards for me are a physical representation of the support network that exists in my surrounding family and friends. They are extraordinarily private things meant for just one person’s eyes. They are a tangible product of emotion and personal relationships. At that particular point in time I couldn’t think of a more private object that has so much potential to conjure up emotion (my emotion or the viewers, or both..?)

Initially, I thought it would rouse feelings of sadness as the viewer could evidently see loving, handwritten messages strewn all over the dirty pavement. In fact, it was quite the opposite reaction. In general, people were smiling and reading the little private messages and nick-names that were displayed on each card, and children jumped around them as if they were a hopscotch game. As I was observing this interaction, amongst other emotions, I felt exposed. A very intimate part of my life in the form of messages from my Granny, and my Mum and sisters were laid bare for all to see. By putting a collection of such private things into the public’s eye was as if I was giving someone unrestricted access to my personal life. Although they could never know everything about whom these people are and what relationship they have with me, the association remained strongly within my mind.

On reflection, I feel I am really exploring the persistent and ever present notion of context within this work; I feel I have altered the object’s context more with this piece that any so far. The dynamics of the relationship between me, the artist, my work, and the people viewing it, has taken a dramatic turn also. I became the ‘Sophie Calle’ like observer of people interacting with the work. Was the work about my collection, or was it about people’s reaction to the contents of the collection? Maybe I cannot fully analyse it now as it is so fresh and recent, but I think I am onto something quite interesting here..

Video documentation of a site specific installation consisting of a collection of old birthday cards belonging to me positioned on the pavement in Ipswich town centre.

I have progressed a great deal recently; just by being in a space, I have been able to put a good number of my sketched ideas into practice. The last couple of weeks have allowed me to see that unless I am physically standing in a space, actually looking at the white walls as a blank canvas, I am unable to really create anything tangible or worthwhile. This seems obvious. But I am reminded once again, that this is the fun bit: getting my hands dirty and being creative, allowing my inspiration to take form and develop in front of my eyes!!

Due to the fact that the genre of collection-based, autobiographical collections is so vast, I have been feeling the need to narrow down the subject and pinpoint exactly what it is I want to be making. If you actually think about it- I could make a collection from anything! What is preventing me using any object that surrounds me? So to focus my ideas, I need to explore a variety of different collections and see how I can experiment with the subject.

Although some of the ideas have been present for a while (in the form of the drawings and sketched designs) only now can I see that I am attempting to stretch the ‘theme’ of autobiographical collections into various different directions. Because, unless I have seen for myself what’s working and what’s not, how am I supposed to know what type of installations communicate my concept?

Really, I think it is tying in with the ‘process/concept’ debate again. Do I seek otherwise unrelated objects for their conceptual, underlying meanings or do I use (or make) objects that are intrinsically linked to me and who I am? So, in attempt to settle this, I am experimenting with found objects, made objects, existing collections of objects and photographic collections to see what is most fitting.

Taking the aforementioned advice from Michael Landy and then running with the idea of making an installation out of a ‘by-product’ of an action has lead me to the “Blue Tack” piece. This is the first artwork I have created that utilises a ‘made’ object. I would say it evolved quite intuitively; as I was thinking about what to do for my next idea, or as I was in conversation with the people around me, I found myself instinctively moulding a bit of blue tack that was on my desk in front of me. As I looked down at the little malleable sculptures I decided to keep them instead of folding them up into a non-descriptive ball again.

Michael happened to notice me fiddling with the blue tack and subsequently picked up on a significant part of my working process. This is using objects that are a by-product of an action. The receipts I pinned to the wall or the staples that I meticulously glued onto board and framed are both examples of this.

In the context of the installation, the hundreds of mini sculptures are seen bursting outwards from one corner into the rest of the white room. They are physical products of a thought process, like doodles on paper; the little pliable objects represent ideas, conversations and thoughts. The visual explosion signifies the very nature of ideas; sporadic and unpredictable, every idea and thought, however revolutionary, all started somewhere.

On reflection of this work, it felt very much as though I was putting something very private and intimate into the public’s view. Although the narrative behind the little blue tack sculptures is unclear to the viewer, to me they represent a private moment. The blue tack is a by-product of a small, insignificant action. But by choosing to display them for the public to see is where context comes into it again. By dramatically changing the sculpted objects’ context, I feel as though I am putting more of myself into the work- putting myself on display in a way.

Although the shadows accentuate the detail of each key and bring the viewer into the space, I came to notice that the installation worked just as well in daylight with the bulb turned off. I spent a long while on my own in the space dwelling over what these objects meant to me. I mulled over the original reasons for collecting the keys in the first place and combined those thoughts with how I felt about the work in its entirety. My mind kept returning to the idea that these objects represent potential and opportunity; the mystery that surrounds them not only allows an imaginary narrative to occur, but also prompts thoughts about time and how life has evolved since the keys were produced. This along with the fact that the actual structure of the key with its long thin stem and round head remind me of the human form, prompted me to see these keys as people in my life; people who have created opportunities for me; people who have opened doors for me, or people who have in fact closed them too.

The piece I have constructed most recently conforms to the second approach of focussing on the object and what it means to me; the significance of the collection and what it represents conceptually. The installation, which at the moment is untitled, consists of hundreds of keys; all different shapes and sizes, colours, ages, weights and functionalities. I have been actively collecting these objects over the last 6 months, but up until now have been unsure on how to use them.

I was initially attracted to the keys for several reasons. Firstly, they are extremely interesting things which are so varied in physical structure and form. Even though they all have the same general purpose in the world, each one is so visually different in its design. The antique ones in particular are beautifully crafted and hold within them so many stories; each one has its own life. I also find it interesting that this life span dramatically changes once it’s been lost or made obsolete; it goes from being one of the most important things on our person to meaning absolutely nothing once it has been replaced or misplaced.

From my point of view, the most significant attribute of a key is its capacity to mean and represent a multitude of things; freedom, imprisonment, security, danger, power, importance, rank and value. But probably the most resonant quality for me is the key’s potential; it holds so much possibility and opportunity. I love to imagine what each one was originally used for and what journey it took to reach me.

All of these reasons are why I chose to collect keys in the first place. It was not until I placed them within a space I started to understand how and why the installation could be seen as autobiographically representational. Unlike previous works, I started this particular piece with a process as opposed to a concept. Ordinarily I would start with an idea and create a piece in accordance with it- trying out all possibilities and directions before settling with something I think best defines that concept. With this piece, I knew I wanted to use keys but did not know what significance they were going to have when collectively displayed within the context of a ‘gallery-like’ space.

I knew I wanted to accentuate the intricacies of each key without physically altering the object’s structure. I wondered how I could highlight the detail and the varying shapes of each one- how could I bring to the viewer’s attention each key’s varying aesthetic value? I figured the simplest way in which I could do this was to project the keys’ shadows onto the surrounding white walls using a singular bright light. Although the outcome is cringingly resemblant of Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter, it manages to successfully fulfil the initial objective. The array of soft and sharp shadows not only visually doubles the quantity of keys on display but they also manage to bring to attention the individual diversity within the collection. Some of the keys are enlarged as much as a meter in length- depicting the unusual shapes of the ‘flag’ (the flag is the uniquely cut section of metal at the end of each key that manually turns the bolting mechanism within the structure of the lock- these, particularly in the older keys from the 19^th and early 20^th C are extremely unusual). Another reason for wanting to incorporate shadows was to bring the space together- to engulf the viewer within the collection to enable them to really appreciate the collection on display. The reaction I received from the piece was very positive- I noticed people being drawn into the space and staying there for a considerable amount of time, the majority of them were absorbing the details of each key- often pointing out the more unusual ones and stating which one is their favourite.

But what does this piece mean to me?