Interview with Kerri Anne Chisholm.
Hello Kerri. Can you please tell me about your role in the process of preparation for the Degree Show?
My role? I’m helping to put the catalogue together. And I am one of the secretaries, one of the two secretaries.
Please discuss the current themes and concepts of your work, and methodologies that you use to develop it.
Well, I am very interested in looking at human communication and the impact of different cultures on this communication. I’m looking at.. umm…proxemics. What im looking at is defined as proxemics. In my work I’m trying to find a way of incapsulating the magnetic energies in the spaces between people. I’m also looking at the electricity felt at the individual touch. This manifested through analysis of photography as an object – the object hood of photography and mediating the photograph as a method of preserving and documenting a subject, as well as its sculptural qualities. First I was looking at Polaroid images, taking them apart by doing emulsion lifts and looking at the relationship between the… umm…the lifts and skin, because before they dry, the lifts resemble skin. But now i moved from looking at them separately to try and pair them together.
Do you have an idea of how you want to present your workat the Degree Show?
At the moment I’m using latex skin to map parts of the body that we do not get to study unless we are in close proximity to someone. And through that comes the idea of looking at skin through skin and the lack of skin between; because I’m planning on stretching these latex skin maps over images that relate to proxemics and acrylic glass. I’m planning to have it lit from behind so that you can see the skin textures in the maps and also focus on the tension between the distance.
What inspires you? Maybe things that you see? Watching people?
I read a lot of books. I read a lot and get my inspiration from this. Because my touch experiences translate directly into text. I’ve been working recently with documenting these experiences.
How?
I keep a diary of touch experiences. Which is awkward.
How do you keep this diary? What do you write in there?
I write about strangers, about people that I know. All of it is anonymous. I write about experiences which have that electricity when a person touches me accidentally or intentionally.
It sounds very sensual. Do you hope to translate this feeling in your work at the degrees how?
Very much so. My work isn’t necessarily about specific experiences but about creating a head space in which the viewer can either reflect the experiences that they had that are similar or they feel like they can experience what is being portrayed through the work. And yes, my work is sensual, because the skin is one of the biggest organs, it’s one of our five senses.
Have you considered going very large with your work?
I did but I like the intimacy of it when it’s smaller. I have nothing against larger works, if it is appropriate I will make it large.
What do you find most difficult in the build up to the Degree Show?
Umm… A lot..it’s personal. My world translates as touch. And it is difficult to take something that has so much electricity and try to make people feel that electricity…
Interviewed by Mariya Zherdeva
