Hunter Gathering…
All the threads are being gathered and deadlines bringing the image of the work into focus. This is when what is not essential to the work gets dropped – however beautiful- and saved for another time..and the bare bones of the body that will form the final version of the installation start to emerge.
Nicky the designer has ordered a sample name to be cut in mirror and sent to me to work with on the wall, and she has been doing layouts to see how large they will be and what they might look like in a long panel around the room. I spent an entire day working up a very different layout idea last week, inspired by 19th century Persian ‘broken’ calligraphy, was certain it was the right one. Then rather frenzied and noticing it was full moon, (the impulse to smoke large numbers of roll-ups should have given it away) woke up realising the original layout of a simple panel around the room is the right one. Simplicity. Keeping the gaze steady. Nicky has also given me a word count for the text that I am collating/editing that will run under the names so this is my next written thing to work on, after sending back comments on the PR that s being sent out this week.
Meanwhile, in the studio, I am wrapping my response / proxy objects, things I have sourced, mainly in response to the Paiwand group’s written /drawn’ objects (who had no possessions to offer up for obvious reasons). Among the objects I have put into that collection so far are; a model of a couple – wish for relationship with partners/mothers, a model of an apple – the memory of an apple tree back home, a pair of goggles – current swimming routine to stay ‘safe and strong’, a mobile phone – three people asked for this, a wristband – a lost present connected to a cousin back in Afghanistan, a man’s signet ring… I have a copy of the Koran on order (I can’t quite part with mine even though I don’t really read it much anymore).
The wrapped Barbie you can see in the images is my donation to the Tallo portrait and has it’s own story, related to my own teenage years, which will be written about in the show…
Anyway, I have to now go and find or make something that looks like/stands for a spanner, a washing machine and 65kg weights (!), a passport and source the lyrics to Rihanna’s song ‘Emergency’ and look up certain passages of Rumi …eclectic job that this is…
