ghostfurrowsformeal

Started to create the site specific pieces for MEAL. So far the piece for the settling house has become ghost exchanges - 24 bookworks that are created from joining (binding) two book structures together. The arrangement of two book forms joined together enables reflection on the hierarchy of negations that took place within the building in its former incarnation and site. I was considering how to hang this work in the space and how the fixing could become a part of the work.  I came upon the phrase 'on the nail' and of course it now makes sense to just bang a large nail through the two books - fixing them in the process of joining. The idea being that this would seal the deal - on the nail....
The work for the stables has become gathered furrows a large-scale yet light structure that is positioned specifically to reference the link between the construction of the smock through the process of smocking and the ploughed land worked by the people who wore the smocks. The specific qualities of the melancholy light in the stables attracted my attention. As part of the project unpicking and rebinding I  handled many objects within the collection at MEAL and I felt previous owners of these belongings ever present. The objects surfaces embellished and burnished by repeated handling, their presence embedded within the objects. I thought of the past, the repetitive act of ploughing, loss and the line and responded with gathered furrows.

Physically making it was quite a feat as its 6m x 4.5m made of baking parchment and requires strengthening so that its weight is evenly distributed - or at least going to when it’s hoisted above head height to make a false ceiling.