Performative* artwork in a London Bridge office
As part of The Art Academy’s Post-Graduate course, the artists involved put on a show at the end of the year. Previous years have been held in gallery spaces, however this year, the Academy partnered with Four Communications to install the exhibition in their London Bridge offices.
Here are some photos of one of the works – Back / Forth – I made on the night of the opening…
These groups of sofas act as ‘pods’; temporary, intimate spaces within a huge open-plan environment, that are used by staff to hold meetings and talk about projects and ideas.
The installation was a physical response to the space and the office furniture within it, and a development on from another installation I made last year as part of the Bad Behaviour show, Collaborations.
(Thank you Meng Ni Beh for the video above)
(Thank you @lissytom for photos above)
At first it was strange making the work during office hours; working in amongst the staff typing on their computers and making phone calls… In fact, I really enjoyed the incongruity of it, and it made me curious about ways of developing the project further…
It was only installed for the night of the show, so the next day – again, during office hours – I took it down and took these photos to document it.
I really like how, once they were cut, the taut criss-crossed threads sprung into these loops and coils back onto the bands of wool fabric…
Once disassembled, there was no trace of me ever having been there; the sofas resumed their duties as office furniture once again…
*I used this word to mean the work was made – or performed – during the exhibition. Looking it up though, the definition seems to apply more to words pertaining to action in speech ie. saying “I do” when you’re getting married, an umpire calling a strike, a judge pronouncing a verdict, or a union boss declaring a strike.
I haven’t changed it, as I think it relates to the work anyway; the action of making the installation and its threads being a physical manifestation of the back and forth of ideas that are spoken by the office workers when they hold their meetings in the sofa ‘pods’ or huddles.
