confessions of a hoarder

As I am unpacking materials and objects used during Independent Dance’s intensive workshops Sharing Making Moving at Siobhan Davies Studios last well, I have also started unpacking some of the ideas and questions prompted by the these.

One is the question of how sustainable can my practice be given I have a studio full to the brim with stuff and yet I keep producing more things (see website and dailymades) while also bringing in fresh supplies of materials to work with from regular foraging excursions?  I own up to it, I have a big problem on my hands: I accumulate stuff at an alarming rate without being able to throw anything away.

Working with Dancers last week, I’ve realised one thing I love about dance is its economy; the body is the material and steps, routine, choreographic sequences need only be stored in one’s head.  In this lies the answer to my problem I reckon.

One of the participants made a record of what she had made by dancing her object as means of sketching it.  How could these movements describe accurately anything about the making of her object I thought, the physicality of its materials, its outer appearance?  How could the same thing be made again from a simple set of movements?

Myriam said her movements were instructions on how to work with the materials.  Her interest when making was to have the materials balance and the shape of the final outcome was of secondary importance to her.  The way she moved described this task.  As for the exact object being made again from her ‘danced’ instructions, she was not worried about that.  Why do anything twice anyway, what would be the point of this she told me.

So here is the answer to my problem: rather than keep all that I make, I should record what I produce as a set of instructions.  These could be rehearsed and memorised, or written down as task cards, or both.  Each time an object is made, it will be like making it for the first time.  It’ll be an exercise in improvisation rather than repetition. Performing the instructions might be a good substitute for the object of course, but that is a whole other question…

Object probably don’t matter in the end, ideas do, and ideas are meaningless without actions.  Content and meaning for me reveals itself through process, and this means moving as well as making. All going well, my next blog (written from a newly spacious studio, of course) will be titled ‘confessions of a dancer’.

spinning up and down
ending with a leap

studio surfing

If process is everything, then where better to see work than in the artist studio. Paying a visit last week to Helen Carnac and David Gates in both their work spaces, I was once again impressed to see how the combination of materials, tools and works in progress make such a cohesive and aesthetic whole. It reveals something fundamental about their practice; I only wish I could say the same about my own studio!

Occupying adjoining spaces in an old manufacturing building in south-east London, their studios are full of stuff in a state of productive messiness, seemingly random arrangements of things making you question whether they’ve been placed with specific intent or not. I know of course that details here are all important, and it's fascinating to see how these ad-hoc juxtapositions, these accidental montages, end up finding their way into the work they each produce.  

There is some kind of ‘cross-pollination’ happening between the two studios, a conversational exchange between one space and the other. Having worked with Helen and David on a number of projects, I am familiar with much of what I see here. What I’ve photographed however is also resonant with ideas addressed in my own work; I have captured what I know and recognise in my own practice. Could these photographs be evidence some kind of melding all of our work?

I've often wondered what the outcome would be if artists swapped studios for a period of time. In this case I would use David’s woodworking tools, David try his hand at enameling, and Helen work with my secateurs, lace bobbins and crochet hooks. I can't imagine David trusting me to go anywhere near his hand tools, so we'll never know the outcome of this, but these pictures, showing detailed views of both David and Helen work spaces, go some way I think in giving me a sense of what would happen with this imagined 'studio surfing' scheme.

weave is a dance

Since starting with the interactive pieces I’ve mentioned in the previous post, 16 Knitting Pieces and 22 Garland installations have now been made in 9 different countries, across 3 different continents. Several thousand people have been involved in the creation of these works, exchanging tips, stories and experiences about making. All good! However, the odd thing is that I am not privy to any of these conversations, or very few of them at least. I facilitate them, but I am not a witness to them. I’ve never been particularly interested recording, filming or photographing the process as the installations are made. I do keep the fabric produced as a document and record of the activity and these are exhibited at a later stage, usually in the context of a new piece being created. This happened with my exhibition at the Centro Colombo Americano in Bogota in 2010, as well as nEUclear reactions at the CAB in Burgos in 2006, which then travelled to National Gallery in Prague for the Biennial in 2007. What has increasingly interested me with these works are the movements and gestures ‘performed’ by the stitchers as they go about their creative task. What I want to focus on is not just the object, nor the process, but the actions and movements required for the creation of the work.

An opportunity to investigate this presented itself when Helen Carnac asked me to contribute a piece for the touring exhibition Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution in 2009. I planned to start the making of Garland #21 included in the exhibition using a group of dancers as human bobbins. The dance stood as an invitation for visitors to add to the stitching over the course of the exhibition. Working with dancer/choreographer Cheryl McChesney Jones on this, we looked at stitching patterns and dance notation, and relied on the dancers for their input in creating the final choreographic sequences. This then led me a couple of years later to devise Stairwell Suite for my current exhibition Drawn to motion, woven in space, stitched over time at Siobhan Davies Studios in London. Stairwell Suite is an installation resulting from a performance by three dancers. I worked with Laura Glaser to develop the piece by using the stairwell at the studios and its distinctive vertical metal framework to weave on – see pictures above. This collaboration allowed me to interpret stitching patterns into a set of movements performed by the dancers to create a spiralling web-like structure while travelling up and down the staircase. Bobbin lace and finger crochet techniques were used to do this. The work was informed by Stairwell Weave-In at the Dovecot Studios, and Intelligent Trouble’s intervention at Kings College during the Festival of Materials and Making organised by the Institute of Making last October. The performance and resulting installation at Siobhan Davies Studios was an opportunity for me and the viewers to reflect on weaving and stitching processes, the relationship between object and action, and the silent negotiation between dancers, space and the materials, captured in dance.

The piece was performed at the studios this last Thursday January 12th, and will be again on February 17th, followed by a discussion between myself, Professor Patricia Lyons and dance artist Laura Glaser.

The images above illustrate Stairwell Weave-In at the Dovecot Studios, and Intelligent Trouble’s installation at Kings College. A film of the performance at Siobhan Davies will be uploaded on this blog shortly. For preview of exhibition click here.