Homeless

Initially, I was going to make some sort of installation out of drawings. It was going to be a dreamlike space/site somewhere in school, for this Assessment. All this was quite dependent on getting a project space. After almost two weeks of several emails between several people I still was not able to book a space. Communication breakdown. This left me in the middle of my project suddenly not knowing how to proceed, how can I make a work with no space to put it? I didn't want to put a work in my cluttered studio space, or an odd corner or hallway, not because I didn't think that would be cool or mysterious or whatever, it could have been, but because it takes me quite some time to make my work and I don't want it to be destroyed. My work is delicate and I get attached. 

I had already started on a character for my drawing installation, and suddenly felt sorry for him/her/it, because I felt it had nowhere to go or be. I stopped thinking about the installation I had been imagining and focused on the greater issue of space and site. I started thinking about who my audience was and how the experience of the Assessment would be like for them (aka: you guys, our teachers). The audience would be moving through school, from space to space, talking about work. Since my character was basically homeless I decided that I would send him/her/it with you for the duration of the Assessment. 

Not to worry! He/she/it is very light and a lot tougher that he/she/it seems! 

This might have a slightly theatrical, maybe even performative quality to it. I'm surprised at how prioritising site and space before the work itself has so drastically changed it's outcome. Before I had imagined a work and then a space for it. Even though I had already started making work, the role of the work and my relationship to this Assessment in terms of "showing" really became transformed. Not just because of the an inability to secure a project space, but because of the notions of site and space itself that I have developed a more informed relationship to.