Broadly, my work is concerned with the various ways that we might be together and how this is negotiated. Recently, this work has taken the form of walking and talking with others: in work for the solo-exhibition A Common Third at Danielle Arnaud, London (2010) routes through hills and mountains were jointly-negotiated before being recalled together and which later formed the basis of an audio installation. In other cases, I have worked with other artists or craftspeople to bring a particular set of representational conventions to bear on spoken descriptions of objects or locations: in Carved From Memory, a solo-exhibition at Spacex, Exeter, UK (2009) I set my Grandmother in conversation with a stone carver to re-imagine a carving which her father had made, which used to adorn the West Front of Exeter cathedral and which was subsequently damaged beyond recognition; again, a recording of this encounter was installed as an audio installation. My interest in these works is in the ways that 'landscape' or an artifact can become the repository of, (or cipher for) such inter-subjective negotiations. The title of A Common Third alludes to Luce Irigaray's pointed observation that such 'third' entities can appear to be proxies for understanding, but may infact hinder 'togetherness'. I am increasingly interested in these moments or events when such relationships find concrete form, (their negotiation apparently at an end) or where such forms return into speech or gesture, (once again enlivened by a process of negotiation.) These ideas and interests have been explored in Charade, the large-scale participatory commission for BBC/Arts Council England (2005-7), and the film Memory Marathon, for the Olympics Development Agency/Arts Council England/London Development Agency (2010). In Mountains & Lacunae, a small-scale performance event, (with Canadian artist Sarah Cullen) held at Danielle Arnaud, London and 47, Toronto (2009) the work has pushed further towards existing only in the speech between participants, with no documentation being made and an invitation card and memories of the event its only legacy. Work in development delves deeper into processes of negotiation in the context of diplomacy and conflict-resolution. Simon Pope 20/10/10 |
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Statement |