It's probably not dead, just give it some water and it will be ok
The project on show focuses on the pot plant and fabric from people’s houses, making up a body of work challenging our perception and preconceptions about a defined space and the emotional attachment to their “refuge”: in the photographs, objects are being extracted from their originally place to the controlled condition of her studio to give them a new context and purpose.
This project in such being a pure study of the controlled environment of the studio, it explores the creation of a space to channel the unpredictability and complexity of portraying nature. First using fabric as an element to create a staged environment, defining a conceptual space as ‘home’; a background to the plant images. The element acting both as a canvas and a device: a theatrical impetus summoning a space and context. Then slowly removing the actual plant and focusing on the transformation of an object into an image, the creation of a sculpture and personal performance for the camera. The texture and surface from the living space play a part in how we read human traces without revealing the presence of individuals and the plant.
Each image is such to be a representation of a certain domestic space. It is arranged to create a ‘living’ sculpture, portraying a human being and a simulacra of their personal home, which is echoed through the patterns and shaped created by the fabric. The visuals generate a territory playing on the viewers’ expectations about what it is to see in the features that are emerging, thus contrasting a more usual confrontational or detached practice of portrait.
A Place Called Home
"It' s probably not dead, just give it some water and it'll be ok." The plants and the people are equally dependent on each other. Humans and nature need this contact to survive and thrive.
A pot plant connects the past, present and that which is to come.
A new home. A place to live.
A new beginning. A Place Called Home.
When in the moment of receiving the break-up message from her boyfriend, the first thought of panic that struck was concerning her plants and their prospects, - where would they go now?
Two months later, returning to their flat to gather her belongings, the plants were all dead, and the end of their relationship was sealed with her ex handing over one of the lifeless pot plants with the words "It’s probably not dead, just give it some water and it’ll be ok."
This marked the ground for what was later to become 'A Place Called Home', a project exploring the connections between our human relationships, our living spaces, stability and the essence of a home signified in the pot plant. 'A Place Called Home' will this time be installed as a work in progress at The Plantation, for one night only as a vital part of the process towards its finalisation.
I'm so disappointed in you
I received an email on the 8th of October 2008 from a friend I had met while travelling, he sent it to me a few days after he visited me in London. He arrived with the hope of establishing an intimate relationship; his expectations were completely unknown to me and it would seem that he had perceived our communications in a way that contradicted my understanding. I became interested in portraying the miscommunication I felt had been realised through this virtual world, formed through the use of only text, allowing the meanings presented to be perceived differently by the reader, compared to the authors original denotation. I asked the six women to give their memorised interpretation of the text in front of the video camera three times. The practice of memorising and repeating the text produced performances, which reflected the idiom of the chosen sitters. The variation in tonality, speed of repetition, facial positioning and gestures along with the gradual degradation of the text produced six different portrayals. The films are presented in an installation on one screen each placed in a circle, all of them playing simultaneously, where the variations in their speech patterns, tone, and pauses between the sentences create fluctuating and seemingly random breaks throughout the work.
14/09/09
The subject of my project is the ability of humans to replicate a story. The human as a machine like entity reproducing the same story five times, and their ability to memorise and replicate. On the 14 of September I wrote my first and only diary entry for 2009. I asked the sitters to read through the diary note themselves for fifteen minutes, after which I removed the note and they were told to repeat the story, from memory, five times in front of the video camera. The story itself changes during the repetition and also the facial expressions and gestures of the sitters.
Do I see It or Do I not?
The subject of my project is an investigation of women and their relationship to their own body, their untold stories. What’s the story about the scar she has on her face? etc. Seven women spent time thinking about any kind of emotion, feeling, or memory attached to the part of the body they were describing; written on an A1 size piece of paper, with their favourite pen. They told me the true and honest stories attached to their own body, each in a very personal way. With this body of work I have explored another way of looking at self-portrait; Do I see It or Do I not? is a story about how we see ourselves, and our own feelings about our body; each of the texts represent one women’s self-portrait of herself.
Todays word Tomorrows Photo
The website www.todayswordtomorrowsphoto.com is the result of my project. The website is based around the idea of control. I gave the viewer control of ‘what’ I should photograph. Throughout this project I have let the audience be involved in the process of production, asking them to send me instructions of what to photograph using just one word, during November 2009. All photographs were taken inside my room; the words that have been sent to me have been the subject along with the feelings I have associated with. For all the images visit www.todayswordtomorrowsphoto.com website.
Themselves
In this project I am dealing with everyday subject, the human being and their narcissism; I am also exploring another way of looking at portraits. I asked the sitter to take photographs of themselves while they were looking at the mirror in front of them; they were asked to take five photographs. I have experimented with the moving image and still image at the same time; I am filming the person’s reaction in the mirror, capturing the moment of them looking at themselves, and with the still image the sitter takes the profile images of themselves. Profile images would also have a different effect on the viewer.