Escape Attempt

Arlette and I worked together again for an installation in the Love Hate exhibition. Arlette saw the Clerkenwell House of Detention before me and was set on the two of us working in the cell with the sand pit inside. I’m glad she chose this one because it worked so well with the idea we had, mind you we had the space before we had the idea. I thought the World Cup had to work it’s way into our piece somehow, I find it amazing that everyone watches it, it’s everywhere, I watch it, but it’s like people need it.
We decided we would use newspaper, bigger than life size cardboard cut outs, of people cheering and Arlette thought we could use a beach chair in the centre in front of a TV playing white noise. We thought the dotty graininess of the cutouts went along with what was on the television and hopefully not only visually linked the two but also conveyed something that all this cheering and excitement doesn’t really mean anything anyway.

You Can't Stop Me

I was against the theme of my latest exhibition, Love/ Hate, from its inception and I’m sure I shouldn’t explain why for the sake of sounding cliché for dissing a cliché.

However trite the topic, the Clerkenwell House of Detention is a space not to be missed, it’s an amazing venue. The spot I picked for my installation was a passageway to a very long and dark corridor with prison cells either side. At first glance every horror film, or book, or dream, or experience I had, conditioned me to conjure a ghost at the end - the damp and misty air adds to this as well. I thought this was the perfect contrast to stuffing the beginning part with meters and meters of painted pink polyester wadding and stuffing.

What does pink fluff have to do with love and hate? To me, it has everything to do with it, I used the analogy of Sergei Prokofiev’s score Peter and the Wolf, perhaps a tongue and cheek response to Stalin’s request that music be reflective of the Communist ideal and simplistic and understandable… At first the room full of fluff was my tongue and cheek response to love and hate, just like the strings for peter and the 3 French horns for the wolf (the sound that accompanies my installation). In another light, the polyester I used was a comfy pink pile of bedding stuffed and blocking the dark tunnel that stretched far beyond, preventing me from getting by on to the long and dark path. In the end I no longer saw the corridor as scary, it was sort of peaceful, it was the grossly colored fluff that I found inhibiting, another contrast I hope I conveyed.