Into the Weeds - rehearsal
After the final crit, but before the MA show hang, I used an empty room to trial a solo installation. In this iteration the room is full while being mostly empty - like a single dancer in rehearsal. Much of the development around the hanging components was invented in this experiment.
Photography: Dennis Ngan
Fugitive X Ben Turner
These photos emphasise the angular qualities of the Copeland work, showing how striking the work can look in studio conditions. The directional light was created using upright insulation foam panels, painted black on one side, and a floodlight shining through. However, we didn’t include the tongue in the photographs, and it was only later (at Afterwalls) that I realised how important this element was as the ‘soul of the work,’ in the words Catherline Li, curator.
Photography: Ben Turner for UAL
Afterwalls - Millbank Tower
Millbank Tower residency and group show: Afterwalls: Of the Panopticon and its Ruins.
The show had stated themes of institutional power and control. I loaned Fugitive on request (foreground), and proposed a new work, White Sugar, as ‘temporary monument to residue and remains’ (background). For this, most of the materials were found in the street vicinity of Millbank Tower and returned after the show.
I also included a child’s drawing, found outside the Tate Britain in a paper bag, which I stapled to a piece of wood. The turn towards the personal and naieve influenced my subsequent thinking
Install photography: Dennis Ngan. Studio photography: Owen Herbert.
Investigating my relationship to my own childish creativity through drawing- investigating the self towards investigating what in the world I personally find moving, inspired by the found drawing and Brief Lessons in Creativity, Tate (2019)
Patient
Insulation foam, pva glue, wood, repair cement, plaster of paris, net curtain fabric, earth pigment, acrylic paint, aerosol paint, steel bar, steel trolley. 95 x 120 x 85cm
Classically, monochromatic photography is said to aid focus on light and form, while colour conveys content and tone. Notably, in this form, the interiority of the colourful, emotive content which denotes the relational space is contained within a resistant (largely) grayscale form.
The choice to use the daylight shots (rather than some which I took at night using LED lamps) was a choice to bring the images back towards the architectural and the chance, away from over-repeating the medical connotations.
Photography: Owen Herbert
Theatre
Installation and performance, final studio crit. Quasi-theatrical staging including weight bags, wooden supports and auditorium might frame this as a narrative scene or field hospital. The subsequent intervention hopefully returns the work to the realm of dada performance or ‘happening.’ It is a sketch towards the research festival, and made with live performance and audience choreography in mind.
funding as professional practice
Mercer Arts Award application (£10k) (unsuccessful)
Cecil Lewis Sculpture Scholarship application (£14.6k) tbc
Rehearsal for Unresolve
A useful step in trying live what had only been spoken about, to hear the quality of the microphone and take questions.
The steering committee has met roughly fortnightly. The title for the Research Festival, Unresolve, stems directly from the discussion held at the MA Show, Semillero #5.
In addition, I contributed the 150-word draft for circulation by UAL and SLG (purple in the document.) Final copy was developed collaboratively.
Interviews
Katy Morrison by Owen Herbert:
Owen Herbert by Jonathan Hillson (excerpt 2m55, duration 25m):
Scrapbook: Material processess and wider contexts
This gallery reflects my wider commitment to making practice accessible, open, available for critique; identifying parts of research which can later become public parts of research.
