after this assessment I will start work on the next project which involves a collaboration here is the learning agreement for it.
I am focusing on raw materials involved in my work and would like to explore this further using this project. The project is focused on finding a context for my work and a tour around a sugar factory at bury st Edmunds owned by silver spoon will be a starting point for ideas for work for an exhibition. Exhibiting will be where aspect of my professional development will be realised. My work is nearly always destroyed and there is usually not any sellable work so my artistic career will be articulated through exhibiting. I hope to achieve an exhibition of my work and contacts with the makers of the raw materials I use.
I want to continue working with sugar which would build upon the work I have been currently been working on, I am planning on contacting Tate and Lyle, Britain’s largest manufacturer of sugar asking for permission to have access to their factory at Bury St Edmunds to take pictures of the process of sugar. When I have established links with them I would like to ask them if they would sponsor an exhibition where I would use the sugar. I plan to ask for access to the factory first and then when I have visited and photographed the process bring up the idea of sponsorship. I know that I want to create an exhibition but am not sure where or whether it with be large or small this would depend on correspondence with the sugar factory and prospective venues.
I am interested in sugar and its process because it is one of the rare materials that can complete a full scientific process in terms of conversion; you can heat and melt it, pour it into a mould and then re-crush it into sugar and melt and pour it again. This is the crux of what I’m looking at; the circle that elements take within life and the process of materials, the fact that mass is neither created or destroyed is a big part of what I am looking at. All the atoms within our body that make us who we are, are just atomic elements that have been endlessly recycled since the beginning of our existence. So in a broader sense I am interested in the base sculptural notion of transformation, which is at the heart of what I do, I will advertise the exhibition and keep any correspondence between myself and outside party’s also documenting the process of the time at the factory and any decisions made aesthetically about the work and the decisions made regarding the exhibition and any tactical choices made.
Some exhibition spaces I have thought about are the Freudian Sheep which is an independent run small gallery in Ipswich, the lookout tower at Auldbrough and the possibility of empty shop fronts around Suffolk, the arts centre in Ipswich, town hall, and the Ipswich art school.
I am interested in aspects of the transformation of material and the conversion of raw material this is why I would like to visit the sugar factory to witness the process first hand.
I would like to use this module as a chance to test out new ideas and installation ideas; I want to travel the entire cycle of the sugar from its raw form in to a workable piece of art. My plan B is to organise an exhibition of further sugar sculptures with advertising and marketing, if I can’t find somewhere that will let me fill it with raw sugar and can’t get the sugar, the quantity required for the planned installation. Should I be successful in obtaining the raw material will be used afterwards to create more work, thus establishing an endless cycle of creation.
If I am successful in receiving sponsorship in regards of sugar I want to fill a gallery space with the sugar to around ankle depth I want to do this to physically engage the audience and create a dialogue between artwork and raw materials within the frame of a gallery.
Indicative reference material:
Simon Starling – ShedBoatShed (Mobile Architecture 2)
Joseph Beuys – Honey pump
Silver spoon
The gallery of lost art
Joseph marr
Marc quin blood head
Ai wei wei sunflower seeds
