Fi was one of the original cohort of MA Fine Art Digital students, and came back to give a presentation to our current cohort. She makes beautiful fragile sculptural pieces from natural materials:
I was particularly taken by a few particular comments she made, and afterwards asked her for the speaker notes, which she kindly supplied.
I've reflected on extracts (in italics) from these notes below.
I’m preoccupied with survival. ‘Speculating about what this might look like for our species, for other species and for the environment. That adapting to change will require social, political and emotional transformation is well understood now.
Typically, my search for understanding manifests as transience, fragility and precarity.
I really like the way that Fi's broader concern with the fragility of the environment translates into the fragility of her work. She is able to translate cleanly and intuitively. I have an overriding purpose to my MA work, and I have recurring themes in my work, but I don't have such a natural link between the two. I committed previously to try to think of my work more holistically, and I have begun to make the links clearer, but I would love to find a natural translation of my own - my work lacks a typical style or material, or really ANY sort of consistency of form or process, but I think I can find non-physical translations - conceptual translations, I guess. For instance, themes that might relate directly to taboos around death would be 'the hidden' and 'the transient' - I could make pieces that degrade naturally over time? I was thinking I'd love to make a natural sculpture in the woods and add to it and watch it degrade over time.
At its most effective, the work quietly interrupts, rather than disrupts viewers’ passage through space - and because of the fragile and delicately balanced nature of the work, viewers’ movements, speed and behaviour, have to change. Even children’s.
To avoid damage, the viewer is quickly obliged to pay closer attention to themselves, others and their surroundings.
I really really admire this. My work is still quite angry (although it's not a conscious anger I feel or could articulate verbally), and so tends to arrest and disturb, rather than being quietly hard to ignore. I could learn a lot from this, although perhaps I have to get the anger out first? Prior to Carolyn's death, my work was quite gentle and understated, I feel, so I guess I have it in me, I just need to work through the need to show people the pain. I think, for me, this look like creating work that is intriguing and rewards inspection - the mental health postcards were a rather raucous version of that - it was clear as you passed that something was 'going on', and when you got close, there was lots to see. "A Month in my Head" (if I ever get the chance to show it :( ) might be a more refined version of this - 31 wax heads in little boxes ought to be enough to entice people over, and once there, there are 31 things to see, and (hopefully) a lot of meaning to reflect on. I guess I don't work with spaces in quite the same way, but I would love to do this with people's attention - imagine creating a tiny object that occupies people in a room filled with large and looming pieces. Is it just me, or is there a tenancy for art to 'go big'?
Consciously - and unconsciously, I realise - I am on the lookout for everyday materials and objects, that have the potential to generate intrigue, and, if I am lucky...even surprise or anticipation.
Curiosity and anticipation, are both powerful feelings and behaviours key to survival.
This definitely resonates with me, although for me it's centred more around ideas than materials. I'm constantly reflecting (whether I mean to or not) about ideas I hear or dream up, and how they could become art. I'm constantly mulling them over and trying to connect them in unexpected ways. Perhaps ideas are my 'material'? Or perhaps that's an affectation too far!
I do like the idea of 'intrigue' - it's a word that comes up a lot in art, and I think it's very important - art is supposed to make you ask questions, and to do that, you have to be intrigued. I wonder if some art forgets this? It offers too little up-front? Or worse, offers too much?
Again though, why no love for materials, Tom? I guess I've only just started making physical things, and actually, to be fair, "A Month in my Head" makes much of the texture and translucency of the wax, albeit not directly towards the meaning.
The potential for significance is also important.
...what this significance is - is not at all always evident until much later on in the creative process. But, the materials I gather typically have no perceived value. They are simply not noticed in their natural locations. They are invisible in that they are ‘unseen’.
[..]
On show, assembled together, ‘up-close and under the spotlight, however, their ‘voice’ - their characteristics and behaviours (their nature) become ‘visible’.
Although unseen, the materials I collect are mostly gathered from very familiar everyday locations, the no-land, edge-land between the beach and car park - and roadsides for example... or the shortcut across an unused piece of land by the pub or the bus stop.
By examining and exploring the qualities of these materials and sites - by seeking out coalitions and connections with them - something new - always emerges
Ah, significance, how I love thee and hate thee... I think this is one of the most compelling and explicit descriptions of how 'the process' works that I have seen. I said before that the bad artist thrashes around and claims good outcomes (hey, there's a bit of that with my wax heads!), the good artist explores for a known goal... But I guess the good artist also knows what 'good' might look like, and sets off with the 'equipment' that will likely get her there. She may not know where she's going even, but she knows what she will need to get there, and she knows when she's arrived... Huh. I maintain (for now at least) that a deep connection to the topic and the goal remain important - they are on your mind, they obsess you, and perhaps your subconscious does the rest? Undoubtedly I've had my better ideas not by 'brainstorming' for some fixed outcome, but by 'soaking' in a rich brew of ideas, with some strong but fluid aim in mind. Or am I holding on to some last thread of the comfort-blanket of rationalism?
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