How important is the space that the objects are given and activated in? When is the encounter at its full force? The objects finding space and connections with the gallery is not the purpose of the project - this is still relevant but it really allows a deeper connection for the participant with their object and the relationship and ownership they have over the response that forms through it. The conversations and responses that formed when Mark, Lloyd, Laura, Jo and Sophie opened their objects, in their houses is not diminished for not being within the gallery. The gallery serves as the location of other objects -beings -matter that is both communicative and disembodied from a reality but it's pupose for the pedagogical object is a landscape for thinking and yet only one of the contextualising moments for the new object.
When Lloyd placed his object in with the pencils in the SCVA shop it didn't change the status of his object for the interpretation taking place within the commercial commodities of the gallery shop. It was appropriate that it landed there and that Mark and Sophie recognised why lloyd would have placed it there. The landing point of recognition for these object -human-non human relations is flucuating and restless. Things land and momentarily settle to allow conversations that have been previously untold and as i mentioned before a 'building ' is taking place, a construction of meaning. They all seek recognition of some kind but often move past the obvious towards the evocative the metaphorical, the emotional connections that move them forward and propel their objects beyond form. The matter is mobilsed through its action - intra- action and through its belonging.
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Hi Kimberley I continue to think about the day at SCVA. From the object as gift, and the notion of handing over, as well as the hand of the maker. Handing over the maker's hand, the object as mere vehicle. Then got to thinking how objects are invested with so much knowledge and information and how we physically respond and interact with this information. On Friday, after selecting the Chillida print as a resonance with my gift, I started to think about the ways the 3D object is different to the 2D work in terms of agency. Their respective tactility is a real issue here - the Auerbach at SCVA is tactile but not touching a 2D work seems so much more acceptable than not touching a 3D piece. Why is this, because we can get a hold of an object? Put our arms/hands/fingers around it whereas a painting rejects us and pushes us away? But then I was painting away in the studio yesterday (I am currently working in egg tempera) noticing the ritual mixing of the egg emulsion and the grinding of the pigment, and finally the gloopy surface of the paint felt through the brush as it is put onto the gessoed board and somehow that seemed just like caressing an object. Is that experience purely for the privilege of the painter? Caroline The relationship with the clay handfuls was very differnet to the objects that were chosen in the space and taken around the gallery collection. The first objects had been discussed in terms of their interpretation between the pairs of participants - narratives formed through the objects and because of the objects. Links were made in the spaces but also dismissed and passed as too simple and obvious as if the material, form or scale resembled too closely the object they chose from the ones I had made. The clay handfuls however were different, they were singular and multiple- echoing each partcipants handful yet formed individually. The participants had voiced an immediate responsibility to the form as my statement that they could keep it if they wished became weighted with importance and investment for them. There was a slight ceremony of the unwrapping of the forms that held the suspence and expectation of what was about to be revealed. Conversations were internal and between the participant and the object -the simple form. the clay shapes were less complex than the other objects that I had brought that day, they were an action solidified but initimate and personal. Caroline said that as she held it she was so aware of the maker, the makers hand and the makers action. She felt that it was like having part of the maker within the object now in her hands. Caroline James
Bayley
After working with Laura, jo, mark, lloyd and Sophie I was interested whether they would want to say anything about the project to those who were about to start - they all said no and that they thought it would change the process for the others and alter what they thought or how they approcahed the process. However ,a few days later I had a response from lloyd and this became a voice from the first group to the second. It was a handing over or the voice of a silent but imagined partner. I read his message to the new group pf Caroline, Nell, James, Amy, Agnis and Bayley when I met them at the SCVA for the first time as a group.
Hi Kimberley I have been thinking about what you said regarding passing something on to your new group. The one thing that comes to mind is 'to play first and think after' I think in your investigation going with intuition is key, through play connections are made which a dry, detached intellectual approach would struggle to make. Openness/ leaps of faith are essential, ultimately there are no set truths/answers, each object is a catalyst for thinking from which divergent personal truths are reached. However I appreciate telling someone not to think first is akin to telling someone not to breathe, it's an intuitive reflex. Maybe the key is to understand that the agency of the object resides in us and through external connections, not within the object itself. Truths are not fixed and ready to be unpicked or discovered, they are undecided ready to be made through embodied experience. That turned into a bit of a ramble! I think this is in part due to the difficulty in pining down anything concrete which may assist everyone in such a subjective experience. Each grip was wrapped in white tissue and boxed for each participant, they were handed out at the same time and everyone had time to open the object and think about it before sharing the response to it and the process of opening it. The objects that I had originally formed as small solidified gestures for the first group had been grips of clay. Having considered various grasps, handles and grips the force of my hand on the simple material had seemed most appropriate. It wasn't introduced as a completed object or as an art object, it was introduced as part of the converstaion for the navigation that would take place within the galleries at Tate. Some aspects of that handing over - my handing over reamined cleraly within the evolving practice and particularly when Lloyd had said that the object had made him feel as though he was holding someones hand' he went on to say that ' I suppose we are actually holding Kimberley's hand today in these spaces'. This statement which was materially and metaphorically correct reseonated and whilst I wanted to provide the another small gesture for the second group my ideas had moved on and the grip had to be different but with similar intent. I am now more aware of the 'handing over' being a gesture of trust and attention. The group called it ' a gift' but this was very much their own term and that in turn brought about a whole set of notions that realte to the gift and the burdon of responsibility in the receiving of the gift itself. This new small object was again an impression or sqeeze of my hand. The objects are the same action but form differently and so they are multiples through action but differ slightly through that same action too. A real handful. When making the handful I would squeeze as much as my hand could squeeze and push one of the fingers more firmly into the clay. This action had been informed by the earlier object made for lloyd where the thimbles had created a locating point to hold and get purchase on the object. However, I was clear that whilst my hand shape may not fit anyone elses, the thimble was likely to allow a hold to take place. The thimble was also there to create a valve a point where something could flow in or out. The thimbles were inserted so that the name of the place it came from was masked but not completely so that a hint of somewhere else was visable in the intermacy of the object.
Having said these details and the attention on how these simple forms were made and considered- they were only seen as introductory forms to the research, A hand shake, a hand full. Sophie connected everywhere as if everything belonged with her object - as though it rooted her to the space. Her raection to her object was profound she had almost cried when she opened it and had at once 'loved it' abd known it and held it as her own. This in turn played out in the spaces of the SCVA where a pattern or a material echo linked to her own object. It was almost compulsive as she named the objects that she had connected to in the space, she was hungry and apologised to mark and LLoyd that she 'was being greedy' in the space. This idea of greediness is intersting, sophie touched everything through her object and knew all of the collection through her own realtionship with her own object. 'i see connections everywhere' she had said. Where lloyd and Mark and on teh previous week Jo and Laura had been more specific about how they undertood their object in the space sophie was compelled to act with her object, as she said she was 'offering' to everything as it became a suggestion or an enticemnet for the objects held and boxed in galss vitrines and frames. it felt loose and wayward like a promiscous object sharing itself around the space.
I am attentive and feel responsible. You say that the object reminds you of parts of yourself that you do not like and I am aware of the portrait that you believe I have made.
In a recent discussion with Dennis Atkinson we questioned what happens to the ones who have been transformed through a learning encounter. What happens afterwards, what are we and they - left with. What is learning outside of the remit of institution, of exam, assessment, job, course or promotion? Laura told me that this research project enabled ‘expanded thinking’ as though a rubber band was stretched and extended to join more elements and tie them together. We are building something, ‘Building a life’ (Atkinson 2017) or extending on the buildings we have constructed. All our buildings should be different and take different forms that reflect us, are us, inhabit us as we inhabit them. There is a manifestation but more than a visualization, this dissolves the position between idea and representation - Imploding the paradigm. I feel I have heard you all so clearly as though your words are right up against my ears as though your actions are amplified in scale and volume. I see the details and they make me restless. You give me something through your voices and ideas, through your thoughts and preoccupations, through the way you hold and wave your hands in the air. It has all filtered down and become material for me to give back to you. However, I understand that these signals were already material. Your matter- matter of fact. If I am asking about learning and its physicality, then the conversations and actions together are seamless the objects solidify a moment but not an ending. |
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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