This is a welcome slide which a fellow PGCerter, Sanjeev Davidson, was kind enough to forward to me and now I use it in most of my PP presentations. I like to have it as the image students see whilst waiting for the PP’s to begin.
This is a piece of collaborative art commisioned by the National Maritime Museum. The project was to encourage families and visitors to collaborate with me on thinking about an object that embodied a memory for them. I made this large-scale 3D word from recylced materials and then visitors used assorted materials to make a replica of an object which resonated with the memory of a person or place etc. I’ve included it because the NMM has a policy of reaching out to the community to encourage participation and invites discussion of the histories represented in its collection and sites. These include controversial artifacts from the enslavement and trafficking of people. They have an on-going programme of sessions with schools using handling objects relating to this history and run an annual Black History Month. The NMM also hold annual Chinese New Year and Diwali celebrations. I’ve contributed to many of these as a Freelance artist. I think there should be much more of these kinds of events throughout museums and galleries and feel that Black History Month can be tokenistic, to say the least, when our history is woven through every single thing but goes unacknowledged when it could be explored and used to enrich our understanding.
This is an image of a collaborative performance between LIFT, Phakama Arts Company and drama and arts students from Hornsea College and LCPA. We designed costumes, sculptures and performances to open LIFT’s transportable performance space – a huge collapsable marquee. I’ve included it because I co-lead sessions for two weeks and had a steep learning curve into how to engage young people. This was in 2008 so I had less experience then. Following on from this we ran a summer school to prepare costumes and props for The Thames Festival.
This is another commissioned piece for the National Maritime Museum, this time addressing polution. I was also commenting on traditional representations of historical figures and juxtaposing a formal standard depiction of famous Navy captain (Baron De Saumarez) with a plasticene figure of an Innuit person. I made huge ice-bergs with large sheets of cartridge paper and invited visitors to make objects using recycyled materials to populate the pristine ‘ice-scape’
This piece was made without the sponsorship of Tait and Lyle who have a factory directly opposite this site on the Thames. Its a very light-touch depiction of the value placed on sugar and all that the introduction of that to this country’s general consumption represents. All of the human suffering and trafficking which I feel is hidden. This piece looks beautiful but the syrup has a poisonous quality, as does aluminium.
It took me a while to find this image. I’d seen it about a year ago and wanted something which visually represents how I feel about society. I struggle to be articulate around these issues and feel intimidated in certain situations but this embodies how I think society should operate.