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For my final piece I decided to complete an installation piece that created a range of narratives bringing in influences from my studied sculptors and my own ideas based on my enquiry. My final piece was primarily made up of a shed with the idea of bringing the inside out and the outside in as an aim of forming new alliances and altering the subject meaning of objects. Within the work I did create little scenarios and narratives to bring in influences that I visited in the work of Hatoum. The shed, a readymade item has the purpose to house and protect tools, giving order to the items that are needed for outdoor work. Within my shed I created a garden. The very thing that the objects contained within should be keeping in order. Putting a garden in a shed is in a way protecting an environment that actually depends on the environment and will harm it rather than maintain it. I have also in the shed set up a toilet that contains fish. I feel this has a strong connection. The fish are alive and protected within a toilet which is often the last place a goldfish will see before being flushed away when they pass away. Gold fish are pets and as a child I remember my goldfish being flushed away, but here it is living within an environment that is opposite to a normal scenario. To bring in my influences of Tom Friedman and my interpretation of the making of my fish net as a play on words, I have made a smaller fish net made from dead fish. The net hangs alongside the toilet emphasising the live fish in the toilet whilst the dead ones are hung purposeful and like a trophy. Hanging on the windows of my shed is a curtain made from fish. I began my enquiry looking in to the work of Tom Friedman who takes everyday objects and breaks then down in a machine like fashion altering their purpose and key concepts. He reverses what they are and alters there state. He drilled repetitively a chair down to the point it looked to be just standing. What I noticed quite early on in my enquiry is that my environment inside and outside is surrounded by discarded and unwanted items. Immediately I thought of the saying ‘One man’s rubbish is another man’s gold.’ When I look at the work that he is producing I feel that he is flipping the purpose of the object he is altering on its head. Once sturdy the chair is now brittle and fragile. The basic shape is still present as he takes the chair to its limits of just being able to stand. The energetic holes are repetitive and machine like in execution. He says himself as an artist he wants to be like a machine and act like a machine. The drilling is monotonous and shows the artists hand. I wanted to capture this feel in the piece as a whole. I wanted to highlight the artist hand and the monotony. This is seen in the fish curtains and the small fish net made from dried fish. The difference is that I am not breaking down but rebuilding. In my own work I looked into the altering of an obvious item and that was a box of popcorn. I played with the viewer’s mind by mixing the popcorn with silk worm larvae. From a distance supported by the huge lettering ‘POPCORN’ on the side of the box, the viewer immediately accepts the contents as popcorn and become repulsed by the content when they get close. Equally these two types of foods do form an alliance which known does alter the subject meaning to unity. Silk worm larvae are a snack but eaten in different countries. Within the work of Friedman I feel he is pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable. There is a moral issue in the way he is destroying items that still could be useful in our everyday lives. I feel you could comment on the fact that in certain parts of the world people are in desperate need of both food and simple items like furniture. In another of his pieces he is using thousands of pencils that make’s those pencils redundant that could be so precious for children in deprived parts of the world that would like an education. There is also an environmental issue in the way that we have become a bit of a throwaway society. I also feel it is amazing as to what is acceptable in different cultures and countries and what is classified as food or a bug in others. Most people would turn their nose up at eating bugs which are probably filled with more nutritious value then popcorn. But in poorer countries where food like popcorn and convenience food and fast foods aren’t mass produced, people have to resort to the land and nature to feed them. We don’t know how lucky we are I think to live in the way we do. Again this all goes back to what one person thinks is rubbish is another person’s precious item. Within my work I hung candy looking strings of popcorn, sweets and silk worm larvae on the trees inside like a magical sweet shop. Like weeping willow they hung down to tempt. They hang to tempt birds outside but within a shed no birds live in this garden. Maybe the hanging sweets are for people who visit. With the garden and the shed I placed a tree branch from which I hung food that would normally attract birds. The food in the shed although seen as bird food and hung in that manner is contradictory on two levels. The birds cannot access something that seems hung for them or are they hung as a treat for the person who has made the environment. All these snacks unite in the way that they are eaten in different cultures for the same reasons. They are all edible snacks. I do not think this is an obvious connection to viewers who will see the strung snacks as gross. They will not look beyond the bugs but I do not mind this because I like the secrecy the garden creates. To interpret the work of Friedman I eventually made a fish net out of dead fish. This was a play on words and I wanted to shock. I also found this a comical combination like you would find in the game Pictionary. I do feel that this piece is enticing someone in and then up close you get the shock factor. I strung the dried fish together and weaved them around a small fish frame. I think the fish that hang like a necklace of precious stones is attractive to the eye. They glisten which connects to the glistening of the sun on water as the sun goes down. The combination and connection between the play of words I think does alter the subject meaning of the work. I find it fascinating how the work can conjure up new scenarios and take the objects away from what they are on their own. Currently in the news we see reports about the over fishing of our seas and how fish that aren’t supposed to be caught are caught and trapped in nets. Fish types are slowly being taken from the seas which will eventually cause some fish to become extinct. I saw in a programme recently that by 2050 we may not be able to eat fish caught from the seas and there will be none left and we will be eating reared fish from fish farms instead. That is a horrible thought that we are taking the fish at such a fast rate that the seas will be empty and that will affect other things in the eco system. I also created fish net curtains from the fish and they hung decoratively and sparkle as the light hit the surface given the impression of life and vibrancy contradicting the fact they were dead and dry. I have also in the shed set up a toilet that contains fish. I feel this has a strong connection to my childhood. The fish are alive and protected within a toilet which is often the last place a goldfish will see before being flushed away when they pass away. Gold fish are pets and as a child I remember my goldfish being flushed away, but here it is living within an environment that is opposite to a normal scenario. To bring in my influences of Tom Friedman and my interpretation of the making of my fish net as a play on words, the smaller fish net made from dead fish hangs alongside the toilet emphasising the live fish in the toilet whilst the dead ones are hung purposeful and like a trophy. Everything within the shed feels like it has been given importance like in the work of Mona Hatoum. Within the work I did create little scenarios and narratives to bring in influences that I visited in the work of Hatoum. Outside on the left side hangs a fish rod hooked to a weight. Further weights are placed into a bath placed in the outdoor environment. The set up is a game and gives an identity and human presence. There are 7 hooks on the shed representing 7 days of the week. 12 jars are placed along the bathtub 4 of which have meal worms in that are closed and a fifth open containing some the others empty. The set up is a calendar. Each day a weight is caught and sits on the end of the hook creating a sense of tension as the day isn’t over yet. At the end of the day the weight is hung and another caught. The meal worms in the jars count the days that go past with each jar representing a month. Within this work I am highlighting duel functions that objects have like in the work of Hatoum and my own interpretations of the jars and jam and beans. The exam title is combinations and alliances and within the work of Hatoum she is combining objects with individual meanings to form a new alliance and alter the subject meaning. I also like the fact that over time the alliances alter like you see also in my work of the beans. The filing cabinets outside of the shed are housing mini worlds, hidden and protected by the everyday object like you see in the work of Friedman. The combination of filing something so precious away which symbolises life I feel is seen in the work of Anselm Kiefer. His work was based on the horrors of the Holocaust and other historical events in German History. The work looks haunting and cold and stands like a statue to be marvelled at. I haven’t created forms that are enlarged to create an impact I have reduced down which actually gives a similar feeling as you have to go into the work and focus on what is going on. He creates work from lead which never decays, in one of my draws I have petrified cuddly toys that hold a strong meaning to me and my family as to whose they were. I have kept this draw closed as to hide the identity. Within the other draws I have a bees nest full of honey and mini allotments where the seeds I have sown will grow and take over the filing cabinets like you see in the work of Hatoum’s sandbags. The filing cabinet that should be used to organise and lock away important documents is being exposed and overgrown like all the contents is being leaked. On the opposite side from the bath and filing cabinets is a darkened area of hung petrified objects. I have petrified clothing and hung on a washing line. Petrification is the process of something turning to stone. A process of fossilization where dissolved minerals from a cave style environment replace the object or item and turn it to a solid. The process is very much like how a stalagmite or a stalactite is formed over time. At an ancient well in Knaresborough you can see the items that have been turned to stone at the petrifying well. It is the only one of its kind in England. The townsfolk believe the well to be magic and they are very superstitious about it. Small twigs, leaves and even dead birds were seen as being turned to stone. They were scared that if they were to touch the waters they could turn to stone. I have coloured my objects black and covered the floor in black soot to create a feeling of burning. Soot is the left over’s of wood being pushed to its limits like the ice that melted and left trails in the work of Kitty Klaus. The left soot is crunchy and dusty and has come from something that was once alive. This area feels cold and eerie and like something bad has happened. Usually things like this are hidden away but are left bear for all to see. There are also connections in a way to Kiefer and Friedman within this work. Anselm Kiefer through his process of casting is changing everyday objects into lead casts. Although the methods are very different the shapes and forms being changed to exist as solid items shares the same concept. Within the work of Friedman the alliance exists in the way that a once functional object is being altered in a sense to exist in this case as a relic or fossil. The work produced by the well lacks any human contact except for it being hung and nature does the rest. The petrification does show a process occurring over time just like the work of Friedman also. The mood of the petrification I think is quiet. The way they are hung does remind me of a car crash scene where people leave items that are personal to the person who has sadly lost their life. In this hanging I feel the human presence is clear because of the pegging outside of a shed where a garden is growing.
I am really pleased with my work and I do think that I have combined nature and manmade to alter and change the subject meaning of objects. If I was to complete this again I would like to have spent more time tidying up the edges and really emphasising the concepts which I think may be unclear and will only be understood by reading this evaluation. I would like more soot to pile up and incorporate text to give clues to the scenarios going on. Due to health and safety reasons I have had to take the shed down which means the end result is only in a photograph at the moment which does disappoint me. All this was completed inside and looking in on the installation seemed a surreal event. To emphasis this I placed a bin on its side where the shed, pea shingle path and the soil seem to be falling out from. I did this because I wanted to keep the work as an idea based on creativity and thoughts derived from combining ideas and materials. Just like the comical connection and scenario I made with the cannon and jam cannon balls pointing at the beans. It’s hard to explain, but people I know where talking about what goes on in my head and how weird I am, but it all means nothing really as it’s just an idea that happens then a new one develops. It’s not a serious piece, it’s a made up scenario which hopefully will be understood by it looking like it is falling out from the bin. It’s just a surreal setup to entice a response.
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| Author |
| Toby Bowles , 17 yrs |
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| School |
| Sir William Ramsay School |
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