ARTISTS TALKING

Heather and Ivan Morison on the thinking behind their work I am sorry. Goodbye.

I am sorry. Goodbye. is a new structure for Tatton gardens following on from the Tower folly, the African hut and the Japanese tea house. In the tradition of these buildings its influences come from far from home; from the west coast of America where a movement of people building hand-built shelters influenced by the writings of Buckminster Fuller was beginning to grow in the 1970’s. There, in California and Oregon, small utopian societies were springing up building geodesic domes for houses and meeting spaces. The radical new look of the domes, and the fast efficient building techniques used to construct them, conjured in their builders an idea that they were entering into a new bright future, one made of triangles and domes and big spacious living areas. However, it soon became apparent that these domes weren’t the revolution in building and housing that people had thought they were; they were nearly impossible to make watertight, they were hard to heat, and they didn’t remain standing as long as traditional buildings. The domes’ acolytes drifted back into more traditional forms of housing, and now, in 2008, none of those original domes are left standing. I am so sorry. Goodbye. exists as a lost instance from, and a monument to, that failed utopian moment.

The conjoined domes of the structure are inhabited by a guardian whose task it is to keep the stove lit, water boiled and visitors supplied with flower tea. The guardian has the vocabulary of the words: I, am, so, sorry and goodbye. These words were first conveyed to us whilst staying in an old upmarket hotel on Alexandria’s corniche. Late one night I received a call in which the only words that were said, by the slow doleful male foreign voice, were “I am so sorry sir. I am so sorry sir. Goodbye sir.” After putting the phone down I felt witness to something I didn’t fully understand, but felt that we had been given the task to pass on this cryptic message.

Heather and Ivan Morison were born in Desborough and Nottingham respectively. They have worked together on many projects and have exhibited nationally and internationally. Their work is both a celebration of and a reflection on simple pleasures, and mirrors the passion, process and beauty of their subjects; an astronomer, an ice fisherman, dendrology, floristry, a beekeeper, a pig farmer, Java Sparrows, fungi, science fiction and wildflowers to name a few. Recent exhibitions include: ‘And so it goes: Artists from Wales at the Venice Biennale of Art 2007’; ‘Passionate Collectors’, New Art Gallery, Walsall (2006/07); ‘Thin Cities’, Piccadilly Line, Platform for Art, London (2007). Their most recent project Tales in Space and Time is featured at Folkestone Triennale until 20 September.

www.morison.info
www.tattonparkbiennial.org
www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk

Heather and Ivan Morison

www.morison.info

First published: a-n Magazine July 2008