2020

WHITECLIFFE COLLEGE BFA GRADUATE SHOW

67 Symonds Street, Grafton

​

Roadside

​

Dimensions: Undefined

​

Materials: concrete, spray paint, plastic pipe, wood, street sign, sand bag, chalk, cloth rag, tubing, plastic hoop, cinderblock, foam batting, glass, plastic netted fencing

 

The atmosphere of an urban city roadside is emulated as an installation through reformed and deconstructed materials and objects. Transporting the outside environment into an interior gallery setting distinguishes the importance of materials in the world around us. In drawing awareness to the objects that shape environments, an understanding of perception is formed. Considering the viewer’s own interaction with this setting defines how a different reception is evoked by each surface. Presenting as a large immersive scale connects the observer to their own pre-conceived notions, identifying connotations between how a space had been experienced before and how the setting itself influenced or defined the lasting memory of that space. Here, objects memorialize space, standing as markers for how time or places are seen and felt. 

 

When considering the philosopher, Heidegger’s, theories on how a space is made more visible due to the objects within it, the assemblages in this work stand amassing the volume of the area and indicating to the negative space around and through the objects. This space in between the pieces holds the unseeable atmosphere that contributes to an experience. Meanwhile, shapes, symbols and texts are displayed in a generalized way, alluding to a display that is partially removed from reality, while simultaneously exuding resemblance to scenes and landscapes of life. The bricolage of generally ‘junk’ resources comments on the disposable nature of material driven society, while the construction of solid and weighted pieces signifies permanency of objects within a space when an experience is recalled upon. 

 

How we feel in a moment is framed by, or at least holds relation to, the environments in which anything has taken place, This intrinsically builds a link between what is seen and what is felt, how that experience is to be remembered.