Found Objects, London - research

Research project - objects found on street in London

Further research

Full series here

Selected images:

Ropery Street

Bow Common Lane

Cockspur Court

High Road, East Finchley

Exploring collecting / hoarding

A sketch: 169 similar sized objects from my collection.
Initial exploration to develop a further live event continuing from Kept Objects pilot at Arnolfini.
Background research

My paintings - Re:Orientation series

I've just completed a new painting in the series, which I'm showing at Chilterns MS centre fund-raising exhibition this weekend. I have created a blog with some images of older works...and with a more low-res image of part of the new work.

Re:Orientation painting series

Side by Side Show at Fete Encounter

Images of Side by Side Show from LIFT Molten, August 2009

Thanks to Jen Walke for inviting me to take part and to Adi Lerer for performing with me.

KUBE residency - Echoes of a

As part of their three day residency at KUBE Gallery, Natasha Vicars and Emma Leach recruited reporters locally, assigning them topics for quick response articles that connected with their experiences of Poole. The resulting ‘newspaper’ draws together different voices, and explores what it means to tell a story.

Download the publication

A collaboration with Emma Leach www.emmaleach.co.uk

BAC Scratch - Three Keys

A scratch performance experimenting with ideas of chance encounters/found objects.

The participant walks with me through the building towards a locked room, as I explain that they have a chance of entering the room, and that if they do that there will be an object there for them. I was interested both in finding new homes for keepsakes of mine - and in what these chance encounters might spark in others.

Background research

Index print

I've been reading about a Surrealist interest in 're-filing' ideas and objects according to the logic of the unconscious e.g The Office for Surrealist Research proposing creating a card file index of all the 'ideas that occurred to us concerning every question which will be raised by our entire group'.

It's an interesting idea that a collection of items could be called an archive while not being ordered in a rational manner.

I'm interested in developing a previous work - Kept Objects - which sought responses and chance connections with others, when I gave away some of the many belongings I collect around me without making active use of them.

I am interested in links made by early Surrealists like Andre Breton and Max Ernst between chance encounters and the unconscious. Breton described a 'found object' as an external answer to a question in your mind that you did not know you had asked.

I want to explore what my kept belongings mean to me, and what connections they could spark in others.

References:
Sven Spieker, The Big Archive (2008) MIT Press.
Previous work 'Kept Objects' shown at Arnolfini Live Art Weekender