Proposals in retrospect (part 3)

Concepts for space

The idea of creating a structure that was responsive to the space itself was very appealing.

Sketch created using an iPad

Central pillar - envisioning a way of navigating the material in the space

How could the viewer move around this object? 

The way in which I've used foil has always been in an attempt to grasp at something beyond what I can actually see - the material always holds information that is inaccessible; a trace of something that lies unknown. 

Trying to grapple with sheer materiality and concepts of the imaginary is... tricky.

I wanted to be sure my material already had a story before I moved it into a gallery setting - as if it already had been used in an action before, or had held something previously. The idea of presenting a literal shape made me cringe; I didn't want to look 'obvious'. 

I thought about what this object might be then.

If I was going to cover a gallery pillar, maybe I should use the material to cover a pillar that stands somewhere else - somewhere in the city centre perhaps.

I was unsure if this would be a sensitive enough approach, while keeping in mind the way I tend to work; I wanted to keep my integrity in some way.

If it was an object - something I could hold - that I was going to use as a start, I considered using something with built-in content.

A book, maybe.

Or a photograph.

I tried very quickly, one day, to see if a photo would leave an impression in some foil I had at hand. 

Placing it underneath the material, I rubbed my fingers along the photo edge, until there was a perfect rectangular indent in the centre of the foil.

Exactly what I wanted.

In those brief seconds, I'd captured an object using a material and, at the same time, I'd discarded all the information that made that thing what it was. 

There was a trace of the photo, yet it was unknowable. 

The tangible shape was present, but the memory could not be conveyed; it was lost. 

I'd begun using a series of images of myself a while ago, all taken under the age of 7, or before I moved to England with my family. I'd previously honed in on a particular memory, but realised I still had a set of reprinted photographs that I hadn't thought through in the setting of my work.

Five reprinted photographs - originally 1994-1999

I decided to play with these photos within this process not because they have personal significance - which they do - but because these are memories that are only alive through images.

According to various psychologists, human ability to recall events before roughly the age of 5 weakens as we get older, as a result of varying proposed factors. The photos I selected are conclusive evidence of events, but I can no longer distinguish whether what I'm looking at is something that exists wholly in my memory, or if I require a picture to remember. Even then, I can doubt that I am remembering at all, but rather observing a picture I know to be familiar. 

It is this gap that I am interested in.

Photocopied foil with photo imprint and caption