3.7.20 Knitting in unexpected places?
Having spent many many weeks in a very restrictive lockdown, mostly at home and in our garden, just allowed a trip to buy food and one daily walk for exercise, finally we were allowed to travel further afield! My partner's brother and his wife own a secluded wood in Hampshire so we consequently planned a family gathering there. We were able to meet a number of the family outside, be socially distanced and celebrate my birthday! I also took my knitted Body cocoons with me, hoping for a photo opportunity.
It was perfect. Tall columns of the trunks of pines, dappled sunlight and the silence of the forest already have creepy associations for me with all the suspense movies I've seen over the years. The perfect setting for an uncanny photo shoot!
I've written elsewhere about art in unexpected places, in relation to my Wishing trees. and how situating art in an unusual space can provoke a range of responses. I've been researching this over a number of years by installing work in disused toilets, an old chapel, cells, an empty shop and a vast vestibule and a decommissioned prison. Read this blog post for more details of my research. However, it wasn't until I was forced to make work outside, because of Coronavirus, that I set up the Wishing trees in very public places ,and it has made me realise that there is a lot of potential in situating work outside. It brings different meanings to the work, and certainly in the case of the Wishing trees, different and more eclectic audiences.
Wearing my Body cocoons becomes a kind of performance, as I have discussed elsewhere. Until our trip to the wood I had, however, only worn them at home, and only with an audience of one, my partner and photographer, Dave. He had photographed and videoed me wearing them and performing in them in various ways, in the garden and also in front of a makeshift photography white screen in our kitchen. Repeating these same performances in the setting of the wood changes them dramatically, I think.
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today 1)
I think this image can have multiple meanings. For me, curiosity sparks interests and I feel that this image has many curiosity hooks. There are things that are familiar about it, but also plenty that's unfamiliar. What am I seeing? it's surreal. Something colourful in a forest. It seems out of place, wrong, yet when I look more closely, I see a pair of feet protruding beneath what looks like a hairy, knitted shroud-like garment. What is it? Why is it there? A lone figure standing in a forest, hiding in plain sight? It makes me ask myself many questions, but doesn't supply answers....and then my imagination comes into play. It can be whatever I want to to be. And always there is the back drop of the silent yet rustling forest and the memories of the books I've read and the films I've watched. The scale of the parallel tree trunks as a back drop to the solitary figure is compelling.
'If you go down to the woods today...' - the title, from the nursery rhyme, somehow becomes a threat; what will the surprise be? Something unexpected? Or fearful? Definitely not a teddy bear's picnic according to this image....but suddenly, you laugh. It's funny that someone, anyone would wear this, whatever it is, all alone in a wood, and document it, and then call it art.
It definitely gives a sense of the uncanny, but I also think some people will find it amusing.
Again, there was no live audience, just the much more public audience of social media and the internet. What impact does that have on the performance?
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today 1-4)
I selected these 4 images as a sequence.To me they become a very poignant narrative.
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today), video
This makes me laugh! It looks as if I'm trying to get out, but not very effectively. Or maybe I'm wrestling inside that cocoon?
We also documented me wearing Body cocoon 2 (if you go down to the woods today).
This is a very different piece. It's so dark that in many lights it looks rather like a silhouette. It makes the poses much more striking, It's a different shape too, so there's only one way in. It;s hard to see on screen but in reality the surface is highly textured, with big protrusions and bobbles. Unfortunately, in certain poses it looks rather like Tim Shaw's Casting a dark democracy, which wasn't my intention at all.
My performances wearing it are changed too by being in the wood. I feel as if it has darker meaning because it is so dark.Postscript: 27.7.20 These videos were the inspiration for the posed outlines for my metal sculptures. I lay on the floor on a very large piece of paper and asked my very long suffering partner to draw around me in several of these poses, in different colours. This drawing then became the template for measuring, cutting and bending the metal pole for my sculptures.
Having spent many many weeks in a very restrictive lockdown, mostly at home and in our garden, just allowed a trip to buy food and one daily walk for exercise, finally we were allowed to travel further afield! My partner's brother and his wife own a secluded wood in Hampshire so we consequently planned a family gathering there. We were able to meet a number of the family outside, be socially distanced and celebrate my birthday! I also took my knitted Body cocoons with me, hoping for a photo opportunity.
It was perfect. Tall columns of the trunks of pines, dappled sunlight and the silence of the forest already have creepy associations for me with all the suspense movies I've seen over the years. The perfect setting for an uncanny photo shoot!
I've written elsewhere about art in unexpected places, in relation to my Wishing trees. and how situating art in an unusual space can provoke a range of responses. I've been researching this over a number of years by installing work in disused toilets, an old chapel, cells, an empty shop and a vast vestibule and a decommissioned prison. Read this blog post for more details of my research. However, it wasn't until I was forced to make work outside, because of Coronavirus, that I set up the Wishing trees in very public places ,and it has made me realise that there is a lot of potential in situating work outside. It brings different meanings to the work, and certainly in the case of the Wishing trees, different and more eclectic audiences.
Wearing my Body cocoons becomes a kind of performance, as I have discussed elsewhere. Until our trip to the wood I had, however, only worn them at home, and only with an audience of one, my partner and photographer, Dave. He had photographed and videoed me wearing them and performing in them in various ways, in the garden and also in front of a makeshift photography white screen in our kitchen. Repeating these same performances in the setting of the wood changes them dramatically, I think.
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today 1)
I think this image can have multiple meanings. For me, curiosity sparks interests and I feel that this image has many curiosity hooks. There are things that are familiar about it, but also plenty that's unfamiliar. What am I seeing? it's surreal. Something colourful in a forest. It seems out of place, wrong, yet when I look more closely, I see a pair of feet protruding beneath what looks like a hairy, knitted shroud-like garment. What is it? Why is it there? A lone figure standing in a forest, hiding in plain sight? It makes me ask myself many questions, but doesn't supply answers....and then my imagination comes into play. It can be whatever I want to to be. And always there is the back drop of the silent yet rustling forest and the memories of the books I've read and the films I've watched. The scale of the parallel tree trunks as a back drop to the solitary figure is compelling.
'If you go down to the woods today...' - the title, from the nursery rhyme, somehow becomes a threat; what will the surprise be? Something unexpected? Or fearful? Definitely not a teddy bear's picnic according to this image....but suddenly, you laugh. It's funny that someone, anyone would wear this, whatever it is, all alone in a wood, and document it, and then call it art.
It definitely gives a sense of the uncanny, but I also think some people will find it amusing.
Again, there was no live audience, just the much more public audience of social media and the internet. What impact does that have on the performance?
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today 1-4)
I selected these 4 images as a sequence.To me they become a very poignant narrative.
Body cocoon 1 (if you go down to the woods today), video
This makes me laugh! It looks as if I'm trying to get out, but not very effectively. Or maybe I'm wrestling inside that cocoon?
We also documented me wearing Body cocoon 2 (if you go down to the woods today).
This is a very different piece. It's so dark that in many lights it looks rather like a silhouette. It makes the poses much more striking, It's a different shape too, so there's only one way in. It;s hard to see on screen but in reality the surface is highly textured, with big protrusions and bobbles. Unfortunately, in certain poses it looks rather like Tim Shaw's Casting a dark democracy, which wasn't my intention at all.
My performances wearing it are changed too by being in the wood. I feel as if it has darker meaning because it is so dark.Postscript: 27.7.20 These videos were the inspiration for the posed outlines for my metal sculptures. I lay on the floor on a very large piece of paper and asked my very long suffering partner to draw around me in several of these poses, in different colours. This drawing then became the template for measuring, cutting and bending the metal pole for my sculptures.
