This is the installation I did with a group, Archipelago, in October 2010. It was part of the Free For Arts Festival. The group includes five people - some are full time artists, others are involved in sociology research or healthcare. This was the first art outcome we had realised as a group and in a way it was practice for our larger upcoming project, a small commission for Cornerhouse.
It's basically printed cards displayed in an empty retail space window, lit from behind. We met before hand and came up with the actual words together. Some were invented, some borrowed from other texts and some of them were combinations/alterations. It was a bit of a homogenisation process - because we all have different views and ideas in the group, there's no discernible direction to the phrases. I contributed a couple of phrases which (earnestly?) articulated something I really think, but I was almost giving up authorship by putting them with other phrases which made it all look ironic.
re: "I contributed a couple of phrases which (earnestly?) articulated something I really think, but I was almost giving up authorship by putting them with other phrases which made it all look ironic."
ReplyDeleteand this is a problem when working with text, isn't it? people are uncomfortable with earnestness. everything seems to be read as irony, even when there is another possibility. and here i thought that earnestness was the new black, especially in the light of so much contemporary confessional art, not to mention relational work. sometimes (often?) it is difficult to make different voices clear.