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My work as an installation artist, has always involved looking at evidence and traces of life. After the death of my father I started looking into legacies and what people leave behind. The memories associated with their personal objects, Due to Covid19 restrictions I began to create an immersive sculptural installation of my work, Exhalation Stories, as a narrative video in a virtual space. The focus is the breath, the breath of life, as metaphor for life. This is a memorial to my father, a remembering of Dad, his activities, objects and places. His passion for running, work on restoration of the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal and his final resting place, are all captured in the continuous films projected on the back wall. I used inflatable airbeds, as anthropomorphic form, which also evokes memories of family camping holidays.
Although work comes from a personal archive and memorial it also intercepts with Covid19 and the difficulties of breathing. The body being alive but locked down, the nature of George Floyd’s murder, the inability to breath, air pollution, the Right to Breathe and the very act of breathing are political issues. The airbeds filled with air now standing lonely and abject, as figures in the space, are waiting, in lockdown, life is on hold in ‘stay at home, save lives’. Breath surrounds the viewer in an immersive sculptural environment, a synergetic space with the sound of the breath, spoken words and video projections. These gently engage the senses in a tyrannical secret, the unspoken, the Abject, death. |