CO2 – Project Collaboration between myself, and artists Simone Pereira Hind and Brittonie Fletcher.

With less than 4 weeks to between first meeting and final realized project the turn around for this project is necessarily quick, however a sense of commonly held values and interests was discovered even on day one. These include the use, manipulation and effects of light on personal, and perhaps communal experience. The problem of how a personal experience might be communicated through art; and, indeed, whether this was necessary or even possible.

Eggs (From The Magical Urbanism Series) Britonnie Fletcher

Contrasts between the artists are inevitable and while Brittonie’s work seems sensitive, melancholic, and mysterious [Brittonie’s Blog] Simone celebrates the gaudy, brash and trashy [Simone’s Blog].

Curiouser and Curiouser - Simone Pereira Hind

Communal ground can be found in the fact that both artists like to work directly with materiality of light responsive surfaces and because of this a special dimension is necessary to both the artists work. Through discussion the nature of space created to enhance or evoke religious experience was discussed. A fascination with the power and effect, often physical, of these spaces on the  mind and body has had a considerable impact on the research project so far.

Coupled with this all three collaborators bear a common dislike of the CO2Space and the standard format for discourse that the space repeatedly implicates week on week. Consequently a direct intervention into the CO2 space has become an inevitable focus for the trio in moving the project onward.

The discussion for me brought to mind the work of Ragnar Jonasson – recently shown at +44 141 Gallery at SWG3, Glasgow. This show used direct lighting to disrupt the conventional experience of a white cube gallery space, making the space subservient to the work and not vice versa.

In terms of research, for me the project’s major interest lies in the disruption of conventional behaviours of the ‘public’ when the space is finally opened up to them at the end of the project. The question of art as experience raises its head again; as well as the understandings of public and private space involved. Most pertinently, and something I intend to return to in future discussions before the project ends; how this form of practice manifests as a research project and what outcomes can be said to be gained…