May 02nd, 2024

It was lovely to work with students across the university and use some of my objects within the galleries and as conduits between viewer and artwork. There were some interesting conversations that made new links where issues of narrative, identity, death, materiality and architecture were discussed. The Pedagogical Art Objects pulled the individuals in different ways - with the intention being that the subjectivities informed the objects use and the newly tuned relationship with the artworks encountered. The hose pipe and knitting needle object became a weapon and as it was used it became a gun - firing through the multiple poles of needles into the space of the galleries. There is always a balance between the joy of unwrapping the object, the investigation of what it is, the uncertainty of what it might be for, the surprise of what it can do and the actions that the person using it suddenly finds themselves performing.

'They (participant) offered up objects to objects, standing back, testing something...a fit, a resemblance, a link maybe. It was as though the objects were meeting long lost relatives and slowly leaning in for a handshake. It felt like someone trying to match a fabric sample to a garment or a paint sample. The moment that a potential connection was made, they would pause and stay with the pairing like there was magnetic pull between them, and then they would move on. However, if the object failed to link and the potential connection was rejected, the object would be pulled away from a sculpture, painting, or artefact. It was as though the participant was looking for something particular but then failed to find it. It is interesting to question what they were looking for, not knowing before they found it - but the magnet between their object and its material neighbour enables a new resonance - a material charge that quilts itself into the work in the hand and in the space.'

There is a potential mirroring that takes place, in that we look not only for ourselves in the work we see, but also our ideas. The objects in the hand becoming the 'litmus' paper, for the measurement of finding ourselves, and our own voice. The subjective truth that emerges in these moments,  allows the participant to own the thinking that links to the exhibit, not only through their own voice, and thinking, but through the material thinking- a materialised agency that confirms a position. It can 'make' sense happen, although this sensing is in excess of what we are already presented with,  another layer is available.