Re-living Room

26.01.12

AirSpace Gallery have kindly offered me a 2 week spot in AirWindow, their gallery-front exhibition space, which is really exciting - opportunities to show work publicly in such a great position and within the realm of a renowned gallery are rare. It's going to offer me the possibility to start, and more importantly to test, a new piece of work. To realise it physically, rather than it just exist in my head.

I'm planning to install a living room in the window space over the course of the 2 weeks, from building the walls to arranging the furniture to deciding on the pictures that will hang. Each day I plan to make a new intervention, add a new piece of the jigsaw, until eventually hopefully the piece is finished.

The work follows on from a previous piece of work - belonging -  and I'm referencing the same areas of depopulated housing spaces (that were the setting for that work and that are prevalent in this city and i'm guessing all other post-industrial cities). So, there will be a series of connecting references to those spaces -at the moment I'm not certain what they will be - but I'm sure they'll become clear over the 2 weeks.

After that I'm hoping to take the set on a tour of spaces around the city and install the set, or maybe new sets, in a non-gallery situation.

For now though, preparations have begun, behind the scenes, and the first job is to work out the dimensions of, and how to build, the wall.

I also plan to cost the project, so, every piece of expense will be logged.

item no.1 - permanent marker £0.35

re-living room - the statement

Re-living Room is a developmental stage of an ongoing project exploring ideas of space and place in Stoke-on-Trent. The broader project is underpinned by the notion that a place is made up of two components; space and inhabitation.

I have been exploring areas of depopulated housing around the city, noticing characteristics of these spaces. As humans have left, unseen and unnoticed, urban plants arbitrarily move in.  Single buildings are left as a sort of anti-flag, to remind us of an area’s populated past. Increasingly, these areas are ploughed and levelled, completing the process of eradication, turning once important places into spaces in waiting.

Whilst this stage of the work seeks to address the fact that such non-places are a prevalent characteristic of our city, its main purpose is to highlight the vacated nature of these spaces. What happens when we depopulate and demolish the houses and homes which inhabitated these spaces? What happens to the combined memories and occurences when the buildings that housed them are pulled down?

Our home spaces, which are curated almost involuntarily, or without us thinking in that way, grow organically, as new acquisitions are added, in the form of trinkets and ornaments, bought, found or given or framed family snapshots,  As each new thing is introduced, it becomes the focus for our attention for a while, until, gradually, that focus fades, and the thing becomes a part of the fabric of the room. Each acquisition has a meaning or an attached memory. In this way, the space evolves.  The house becomes more than a structure made up of its component parts. It becomes a store, a collection of evidence of presence and familial histories. They become a place to display them, resembling a personal museum or gallery.

Over the next two weeks, I will be building and installing a living room in the window exhibiting space of AirSpace Gallery, in response to these emptied spaces, adding to the installation a new piece or two each day, until the room is complete. At the end of the period, the installation will exist, untouched, for one day, before, in a mirror of the actual situation, being dismantled piece by piece.

day one

Actions:

• build wall
• install floor

Objects, materials and costs

• Voucher for printing - £10.00
• 2"x1"x8' x 8 - £16.64
• oak effect laminate flooring - found
• wallpapered wall panels - reclaimed from previous project
• 6g x 40mm & 6g x 20mm screws - £5.44
• socket and light switch = £4.36
• the sentinel - £0.40
• 
  

day two 

actions

• to install some electricity for light and entertainment
• to install ceiling light 

objects, materials and costs

• hinge butt - £1.56
• lampshade, flex and rose - found objects
• the sentinel - £0.40

day three

actions

• to finish building the wall
• to affix skirting board
• to find suitable furniture

objects, materials and costs

• chair - found object
• the sentinel - £0.40

day four

actions

• to furnish 

objects, materials and costs

• tv unit - found object
• swivel, two-leaved table - pre-owned
• the sentinel - £0.40

day five

actions

• entertainment
• decoration
• time

objects, materials and costs

• transistor - found object
• newsaper rack - pre-owned
• television - found object
• remote control - found object
• remote control - found object
• dvd/video recorder - pre-owned
• framed picture  - self-printed and assembled. found frame.

day six

objects, materials and costs

• frame - found object
• black and white print from found negative
• dvd of downloaded episode of 'restoration home" (series 1 ep.3)
• the weekend sentinel £0.60

day seven

actions

• to find some houseplants

objects, materials and costs

• compost - £0.97
• trowel - £0.98
• plantpots x4 - found objects
• wine decanter - found object
• wine glass - found object

day eight

objects, materials and costs

• frame - pre-owned
• print - self-printed - £6.00
• standard lamp - pre-owned
• downloaded episode of location, location, location
• the sentinel - £0.40