Projects
“Appraisal of x” Les Sebots, 2003.
This project is an installation in the form of a research laboratory where the findings of the excavation site in Les Sebots, France, are examined and documented. The collection includes an incomplete skeleton of an unknown creature and several smaller pieces, which have also not been identified, but are believed to be connected to the framework in some way. Scientists are analysing the findings, trying to understand what it is they have discovered, which order it might belong to, what the environmental circumstances were that made it evolve in such a way, where it came from, how old it is and lastly how all these separate pieces are related. The laboratory is open for visitors to look around, sit down and leaf through the documentation. The displayed objects range from genuine specimens (e.g. chicken eye & chicken scull) to semi-artificial ones (e.g. a piece of bone may be artificially extended into another shape such as the “Scapula”, of which only around ¼ is authentic bone, see below) and others again are handmade in their entirety (e.g. Specimen E031, see below). For this project I adopted techniques of documentation and procedures, which are commonly used in the scientific identification process. "Capsule" The capsule was meant to be a public sculpture measuring around 2metres in height and 1.30m in diameter. (the photograph displays the model -approx. 55cm in height) The inside is fully cushioned and large enough for one person to sit in at a time. The interior surface is interrupted only in the one area where the “breathing apparatus” is situated. This apparatus may be regarded as the life maintaining passage to the world outside, similar to the umbilical cord in a mother’s womb. The capsule invites people to enter and experience. Being alone and shut off from the exterior world, it is a place to just be and feel. Due to the deprivation of stimuli the capsule can induce a change in perceptions. The participant allows himself to be his own experiment- fully in charge, yet without knowing what result might occur. “Yet perception has a history; it changes during our life and even within a very short span of time; more important, perception has a different structure on different levels of mental life and varies according to the level which is stimulated at one particular time.” Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art, 1976.
"Horsewoman" (painting & box with interior viewed through peephole) The idea for this little installation came from a dream. The box has an interior that can only be seen through a peephole. Spying through that tiny hole one can enter a world in itself, as there is no background to the image you look at. The room takes up your entire field of vision. Story (painting): The horsewoman is sitting on a box in a room. Afraid and unable to move it glances towards the door, which is the only escape route but where also the “unknown” threat is. The horse is by nature an animal that flees when it feels threatened. This figure is trapped with its legs stuck in a trunk-like extension of the box it is sitting on. Humans are more likely to wince in fear and make themselves smaller. This figure has two opposite ways of wanting to deal with fear. What is the figure afraid of? The “thing” seemingly hanging just outside the door, to me was clearly a part of the figure itself- a part it had detached because it was afraid of it from the beginning on. Now the “thing” hanging there appears isolated and independent and causes the figure once again to freeze up in fear. The challenge which was not faced will come back to haunt the horsewoman until she can face up to it. Story (box): The situation in the box is one step ahead. The figure has chosen to face its "demons" and rises. The mental preparation for this and the strength and beauty coming from this decision makes the horsewoman able to open up.
