Brushes are an ongoing repeated object in my/sorhed practice. They speak of clarity to me, whether they are cleaning away, starting afresh, sweeping clean, collecting debris, ordering, setting aside or covering a surface or creating a new creative vision. They have always felt like a transformative tool. We brush our bodies, our spaces, our enviroement and brush to create new ones. They are order and chaos. they are contained and containing.
Sorhed examples below. (Karl and Kimberley Foster) These object/material experineces are an enagagement of activation. The need to make the objects function for oneself is important to their undertsanding. These combinations of materials (whether new or from sorhed objects) are formed to become themselves and new selves. They are not pretending to be something else, although they may mimic or mirror elements we recognise. If they only pretend then the suspension of disbelief that is so important to enable the converstaion and temporary control over the object wouldn't be strong enough. Using prior knowledge of a material or original object element one can grasp at the function, make it make sense, use it in some capacity. They open, they turn both physically and metaphorically. We open and we turn. The objects (both new and sorhed) are often worried away at by the participant or activator, turned and twisted, held and rubbed, pushed or cradled so that they become temporarily owned and understood. Understanding in its broadest form. We undertsand something we didn't previousy know, something we may think we didn't need to know. We handle it, we grasp it, get a grip on it. I see these grasps especially when incompleted with their other half as straightforward and literal links to finding a way to undertsand. A simple visual metaphor of getting a handle on an unknown. I have been completing the grasps but am interested in how others complete them....fill in the missing link. with the thing they endeavour to grasp. worry beads? whisking plastacine, churning a semi solid, carving it up. It is interesting how the whisking of plastacine and the custard megaphone are bookending two ends of an experinece, one of complete slippage and swimming in a lack of containment and the other an entrenched stubborn glut, a solidifying lump. This made me think of a collaborative project i ran over 14 years ago called 'I boiled a baok for 3 hours and the pages stayed the same' this was something I reflected on through an ENGAGE publication. I was questioning the collaborative process in a time when the word was used so freely and at times indentified practices that were far from collabortive. The project was about listening attentively, making attentively informed by the attentive listening. The reason that I am remembering this project is for different reasons, the transformative nature of the process but (at this moment) I am thinking of the title of the book that each particapnt I worked was given to read. It was called 'She's come undone' by Wally Lamb. Coming undone - can this replace YIELD a word that I always use in terms of the material/identity of the objects I use needing to shift to equally enable us/participant/learner to open up to new information - to yield. Everything needs to yield. To partially come undone, to let go . The choice of the book was obviously a conscious decision. coming undone does question whether one can be done up again whereas yiled implies making space for for shifting to accomodate. this has slightly more positive connections within a learning capacity. So what is the flow of the objects in this state of unravelling before a gathering and grasping...................... or
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Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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