WAITING FOR THE HARVEST
The Display Only exhibition in the Big Blue Building was good! Over 100 people visited in the 6 hours it was open, which isn’t bad going for a slightly sleepy Eastbourne Sunday.
My policy of re-viewing and re-visiting continues to be worthwhile. I showed The Golden Seed installation which I have showed only once before as my MA show last September. I had to slightly re-write the story which accompanies the installation to take account of the different stage of the tree’s cycle (last time I showed it it was laden with fruit). The sound recording I’d made of the story was, I felt, an interesting step forward, though sitting through it for 4 hours of invigilation helped me identify the areas in which it could be pruned from its current 16 minutes, to a more listenable 10 minutes. (That’s another job on my To Do list.) It was interesting though, that several people who’d seen the installation last time, missed having a printed version of the story, so perhaps there is room for both sound and text.
The notion of “waiting for the harvest” which was suggested in the re-write of the story was re-inforced with the introduction of an armchair, coffee table and books, which I liked – it introduced the idea of a human presence behind the scenes and the domesticity of these additions worked well.
The most important thing however, is that I felt it all still worked, and most importantly, that it is worth showing again – even with all the time and effort (and slightly inevitable stress) which that involves.
