The group chose an object from their bags that they wanted to use in the space. I was aware of the impact of the space and choosing Louise Bourgeois rooms felt as though I was challenging the group, to find themselves within the space, locate their objects and use them to extend from and to the exhibited objects. Some had chosen objects before knowing what space they were going to and suddenly changed, altering the object they wanted. I could see that the felt plastacine shape fitted most easily within the space of the gallery. Stitched, soft and intimate the small object was the maybe the obvious fi. But this little grey shape of felt had only been meant as a starting point for conversation at the beginning of the day. It was now so invested in that it was though it was trying to stand up against the work, have its own voice and shout in the space. Was it the object though that wanted to shout or was it the group. They had regained confidence in this space and after the way they had retreated in the Rebecca Horn room this assertion was important. They were testing the objects, looking for something. They walked more freely around the space. 'I knew immediately as I stepped into the space it had to be this object’ she said, ‘it is female stitched and it fits here’. This material connection is clear and I imagined that the stitching and the stitching would automatically correspond to each other but was there anywhere else to go, how could the objects that had found this new heightened status through the day begin to speak in this space? Surrounded by the Bourgeois sculptures that claim the ceiling, the floor and the walls, I felt the space was so inhabited by her that the objects could be meek and timid. I will keep reiterating that these were not the objects I imagined they would be using here - I had thought they would be long and forgotten from earlier conversations and interventions. However, these small forms had found their forms and they had come into being. They were held in the hand and yet were holding their own. She had chosen the small object holding it in her hands, warming it allowing it to space and adjust its form. ‘It had to be on my body’ she said and she showed us how she had placed it in different places on her body, placing it on her neck, next to her skin. It flattened and lay on her skin continuing to stay there warmed through her body. I thought of holding a thermometer against a child’s head counting the seconds to read the amount of heat. What was her object reading, what was being measured? She had taken and placed it on the vitrines and held it up to the objects. This flattened felt disc was pushed against glass as though looking or reading the objects itself. The thermometer I had imagined had now turned into the pad of a stethoscope, listening or searching for something across a surface. The felt pad (that it had become) looked like a blot on the landscape of the work but was acting like a litmus test for something. She was trying to meet the objects that were so full of body, meeting them with the felt that concealed plastacine and that had been warmed by a real body. The felt was both less body and more body. It was aesthetically lowly with little visual potency but was formed from a body. It was a skin, and its layering on the skin was a potent act. It was an intimate, private offering. He had had an epiphany he said smiling. ‘it is all a set up isn’t it, the colour, the shape, the size’. I told him it wasn’t. He told me that after the whole day and all the conversations that the red pebble had found its fit. He led me to the piece telling me how perfect it all was and how it was if everything was answered and there was nothing left to do or say. He lifted the pebble up offering it up to the Bourgeois heads within the cage in front of us. ‘Look’, he said and I could see how perfectly the pebble seemed to be the same shape and size and colour of the open (screaming?) mouth of the heads. He continued to hold it there as though a pull was taking place. It was a visible resonant link between these forms. A particular conversation. ‘I am holding her voice in my hands’ he said nodding. This was at that moment was an absolute truth. The objects completed each other, fitted into each other, were one of the same. This profoundly important sculpture that sits within the Louise Bourgeois room at Tate modern was completed by a small stone or potato shaped object covered in red tight material. This object was acting with force. Where was, who had, or what enabled the agency of this dialogue. Another member of the group came by. The red object still held up in front of the heads; it’s her voice’ he said again. The other individual nodded with force and almost gasped at moment of connection. This was more that an agreement she understood, she knew and agreed. There was a feeling between them that ‘of course this was always meant to be’. As they continued to stand there - object aloft - I felt a shift in my understanding of the red pebble. He had made it a voice, he was holding that voice and I in turn felt the lump of the pebble in my throat. It was like I wanted to swallow it down, digest its dense hard form which was in contrast to the softer sewn heads of the Louise Bourgeois work. The red form in his hands had been propelled to this position. Its status grander than its simple form. An object I didn’t consider we would use that day. It had been an outsider, a dark horse. Being held there now I focussed on the outstretched arm clutching it and the slightly blurred view of the heads in the cage. I could hear all of the objects, I was so aware of my mouth and my throat. When I mentioned all of these feelings to him he was agreeing and agreeing with speed and haste as though energised by his find. It was as though he knew everything I was saying already, he had thought the thoughts already and claimed them himself. I was aware of the significanve of our group and that we were involved in an encounter in and amongst other people in the space but that no one beyond the group would feel the truth of this encounter. It wasn’t the colour and the stitch that made the almost palpable connection, as they were immediate and obvious. It was the combination of touch, the hole of the mouth, the silence of the work (that provides a silent scream), the stopper the pebble provided. The pebble becoming the voice had robbed it from the heads - or at least drawn something away from it. ‘I am holding her voice in my hands’ becomes a position of power. He had her voice which in turn enabled his. The work - the objects - and him became enmeshed with full force in this encounter. This seemingly inert powerless pebble dared to compete in the space and with the work, he dared to allow it to compete, he allowed it to (in his mind) complete the work. He didn’t move from it he was rooted to the spot as though tied into the tug between matter and meaning. A prosthetic extension was pushing and pulling. ‘today was all about this moment, wasn’t it?’, I shook my head. ‘Yeah, yeah you are like Derren Brown’ he said. After he walked away she looked at the cage and the space below the heads. She commented on the dust and fluff gathering on the surface. She held her small squeezed and folded felt plastcine form in her hands as she began to get on to the floor. She looked at the dust more carefully and put her face up to the edge to the cage and began to gently blow. She began to blow the fluff within the Louise Bourgeois cage. It started to move across the surface and her gentle breath allowed the fluff to roll and find form. From a level covering on the bottom of the cage the fluff was becoming something else, not a residue or marker of unattended time but something else. ‘the fluff is becoming the same shape as my object’ she said. It was rolling into shapes that echoed the colour and mirrored the grey of the felt and the undisclosed plastacine beneath. She continued to blow and the shapes moved gathering more matter within the cage. I was aware of her breath the lightness of it, the control over the fluff she couldn’t touch. I thought of the objects above the 3 heads opened mouthed, and how she was using her mouth to push out the breath to push the fluff. Earlier he had grabbed from the mouth of the head and taken or held the voice. These encounters were surrounding the Louise Bourgeois object. Whist strong and unmoving within that space I felt the small interventions were uprooting something within the work, or was this a deeper engagement in the meaning. This was a physical interpretation, making meaning, shaping meaning. All elements both human and non-human were in a state of flux allowing their readings and actions to alter and settle differently. The imposing heads above her head were unable to see her as she knelt underneath them, their silent screams were screaming at others whilst she held the felt, blew the felt whilst unaware of the other visitors around her. She wasn’t hesitant or nervous in her actions, she as asserting something, asserting herself and the objects around her. She had purpose and a understanding that her actions were appropriate.
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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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