SLOW MOTION SHOES.

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My sister Hannah Merrick is in this new band and they are called Slow Motion Shoes. I suggest you get listening to them and come see them at Deaf Institute this thursday oct 28th. don't miss this treat!!!!

HEATHER BENNING!

I stumbled across this artist when researching for doll houses; I was fascinated by her life size ‘Dollhouse’. Benning found an old abandoned house in the middle of a Saskatchewan field, and decided to renovate the building into what would be seen as a typical dolls house. The back wall of the house was replaced with plexiglass which would give the same appearance as a dollhouse, and the interior was completely refurbished with furniture from the 1960’s. I wanted to discover why Benning chose to create this house, was it simply for the visual aspect? And is the piece site specific? I managed to find quote from her...

“We hold inside us the gathering of the places we have inhabited. Places shape our ideas and feelings; at the same time, our ideas and feelings animate places.

In my past works, I have explored issues of identity, rural displacement and/or reclamation, heritage and nostalgia. My site-specific installations rely on surrounding landscape and architecture to create a mise-en-scene for the viewer, thus making the works a multi-sensorial experience.

The goal with my practice is to make viewers question their relationship to their surroundings and their placement within these environments. However, everything changes all the time, as do I and my research...”

So there we go, I think it explains enough to me...though I still want to know more about the chosen theme and interior as appose to the surrounding landscape. I was attracted to the piece because I immediately thought it was a miniature dollhouse which had been focused in on, and when I discovered that in fact it was a life size house, I became really fascinated by the whole idea. So now I’ve got dollhouse ideas on mind constantly, I just need to focus on one!

http://www.heatherbenning.ca/theworks/dollhouse/dollhouse.html

Heather Benning.

I'm going to build a dolls house.

Well I volunteered to help out at the Manchester Science Festival as part of a group organising an installation piece called the Super K Sonic Boom. The installation was a 23 metre long river of water which was running through a tunnel lined with loads and loads of gold balloons...it’s a recreation of the experience of a sonic boom at Japan’s Super Kamiokande neutrino observatory. The idea is for the visitors to dress in white boiler suits, wearing protective hats and wellingtons to sail down the balloon filled tunnel in a small rowing boat, where they will witness loud ‘booms’ and bright bold blue flashes, hopefully gaining the full experience! So I put my name down to volunteer for the whole week, but after just the one day I actually went back home for a while because I had the opportunity to see Rachel at hospital. I know this volunteer job is great experience, but at the time there was no way on earth I was going to miss the chance to finally see Rach, I don’t care what anyone thinks about it because she means the world to me. I emailed the management team to apologise about the situation and have asked to please consider me again for any further opportunities, because I’m interested in helping out exhibitions, I think it would be fun!

Shleter Project.

I had my first tutorial with Jon today, I know it’s early on in the year but before I went to see him I still felt I was lacking with ideas and work, and really I have plenty of good ideas. I think because of what’s happened with Rachel I’ve just put everything on hold, when really I can’t do that because I love art and I can’t risk my degree because of personal circumstances, I just have to focus on what I need to do.

So generally Jon and I spoke about my ideas for where I’ll be taking my next project, which I think Jon found interesting, though I get the feeling he likes to see the work rather than just hear my ideas! I have a plan to create a dolls house, I just love making miniature creations and producing little story scenes, I think there’s something really magical and intriguing about small versions of life-sized objects. During my first year on this course, I began a fascination with taxidermy and story books, I enjoy the humour which animals and toys can create when set as though human, acting out roles which are unexpected of these creatures. I imagine my doll’s house to set a different scene within each room, each scene will relate to a chapter from a story book...I’m unsure whether I will create my own story or refer to one which interests me already. I’m very excited about this project!!

I also discussed with Jon the new project we’ve been given in class the other week, the project is based on ‘shelter’. Initially I loved the sound of this; there are so many avenues which can be taken with it so it’s something I’m really looking forward to getting on with. Being in a group was optional, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to work with my friend Felix, we’re both very similar in our ideas, we both love making intricate things, and generally have quite a similar outlook. I’ve spoken to Fee about my dolls house idea already and she loves the idea, so I suggested we do something similar with this shelter project, and we came up with a few ideas. We both liked the aspect of having some sort of contradiction in the context, I thought of perhaps creating a shelter from the environment like survivalists do, using any means we could find such as branches, leaves, grass, wood etc. And then inside the shelter would be a readymade ‘home’, including the likely objects you would find in a house such as a carpet, lamp, picture frame and other household associations. Fee came up with the idea of doing something with a bus shelter, focusing on the obvious fact that the general public all use this space as a shelter by some means. Combining both of our ideas we landed on the decision to create a home within a bus shelter, transforming the usual and familiar surroundings of a ‘bus stop’ into a space which creates a home for those who shelter underneath it. Two girls from my class, Holly and Emma both needed to be in a group so they ended up joining onto mine and Fee’s project too. So far we’ve planned out the concept of the project and have given ourselves targets as for when to start setting the scene.

shelter.