WORKHOUSE (Moss)
I was invited by Naomi Lethhbridge to take part in an exhibition that she was curating around the theme of intensive labour. For this, I wanted to make a sited piece around the location of the gallery. After observing and documenting the area I became very drawn to a section of moss that could be seen whilst standing in the gallery. Due to the moisture as a result of poor drainage, this rich green moss had begun to draw itself, creating a beautiful pattern across the red brick of the wall behind.

I wanted to add to and continue this organic drawing by adding my own marks to the wall. A subtle intervention that draws attention to the themes I have been looking at more recently with regard to nature versus the urban environment.

BLANKEXPRESSION 2011
I submitted a proposal for the exhibition BlankExpression which built on the ideas I put forward for CUBEOpen 2010 (See Below)

Here are some images of the work that I made, followed by a synopsis of the work.

Synopsis of Work
I am interested in how our society establishes institutions to ensure that the physical environment and people’s social behaviour remain under its determining influence. This has lead to a basic division between the minority who determine the topology of urban living and the majority who are forced to passively accept its given form in their daily lives. And as nature is seen to be a threat to the stability of the infrastructure of society; untamed and always moving towards anarchy, it is similarly repressed. Control is exerted upon the consciousness of people through the encoding of the physical environment into a highly complex structure of inter-related symbols that exhibit their separation from nature. A perfect example of this encoding of the physical environment can be seen in front of the new BLANKSPACE building, in the form of two square bushes that have been grown within a redbrick mount. Through ordering ‘nature’ into this repeated pattern within the constraints of the square concrete slabs, I am referencing the fact that most natural elements within a city are held within a fixed framework, intended as something to look at and admire from a distance.


Here are the two square bushes that have been grown within a redbrick mount, the initial inspiration for the work:

CUBEOpen 2010
Here are some images of work from this years CUBEOpen exhibition which I was selected for.

Exhibition runs 19th November - 22nd January 2011

CUBEOpen 2010 is the UK’s only annual open competition and exhibition of its kind! Launched in 2007, artists, architects and designers are invited to apply with work that reflects current trends and debates surrounding the spaces and places in which we live, each year the exhibition highlights contemporary insights into the urban environment. The CUBEOpen receives applications from around the globe, visitors to the exhibition will have the unique opportunity to see the diverse and engaging ways that artists, architects and designers have been influenced by our surroundings.

Selected artists include:

ALNIS STAKLE, ESKILD BECK, HANNAH WILES, CARLY FISCHER, ALBAN LOW, CAITLIN MASLEY, ELIZABETH WEST, CHRIS PICKUP, BEN COVE, ORTELIUS DREW, EMILY SPEED, DARA MCGRATH, LEE CAMPBELL, SHAN HUR, BEARD AND FERGUSSON, YAEL SCHMIDT, DAVID THEOBALD, DAY BOWMAN, JOE KENNEDY, JAMES O'HANLON, MATTHEW VERDON, CHRIS WRIGHT, MARY RUTH WALSH, URBAN (COL)LABORATORY, MARC PROVINS, SHAUN PAUL, MICK TIMPSON.

Gallery 1, CUBEOpen 2010, images © Nick Harrison

Forgotten No.2, 2010, by Shan Hur, CUBEOpen 2010, images © Nick Harrison

Throwing It All Away #4, Throwing It All Away #8, by Carly Fisher (backrounf Tokyo Palms 2010 & Still Building Within the Wall - Towards Jerusalem Westbank Palestine 2010, by James O'Hanlon), CUBEOpen 2010, images © Nick Harrison

Gallery 3 & 4, CUBEOpen 2010, image ©Nick Harrison

 

Egg-nest-home-country-universe 2010, by Emily Speed, CUBEOpen 2010, images © Nick Harrison

Press Coverage
26/11/10 Manchester Evening News 
30/11/10 Metro
18/12/10 Guardian
11/12/10 Guardian

Selected for CUBEOpen 2010
I submitted my work Monotony(Benches) into CUBEOpen 2010 and my work was selected.

This is the work as it was displayed in the gallery:

And this was my proposal:

'For me, places are experienced concretely, not as equations of function to form. In this sense, architecture is ‘not’ place until and unless we subvert it with the contents of our lives. In other words, places are where time takes route, and it is time in its forms of personal and social memory and in its connection to the cycles of nature that we have attempted to design ‘out’ of industrial society. For this reason I find it difficult to draw any form of inspiration from newly built developments that for me have no character and no history. They lack the vernacular layers of natural and social landscape that keep the world interesting. I am therefore against a monoculture and have an interest in globalisation and what the effect of the global on the local appears to be. Through my work I hope to resist commodification, globalisation and uniformity by highlighting differences, imperfections and the marks of human existence.


Thinking about local distinctiveness and the effect of the global on the local, I wanted to draw attention to the monotony of the street furniture that we find in Manchester. Using red thread, I cross-stitched the letters of the word ‘monotony’ onto eight consecutive bus stop benches in order to highlight the homogeneous quality of these identical bus benches that line Oxford Road. This piece of work became the first in a three part series called Monotony. It seems to me that if we continue with this strategy of homogenisation, we are headed for a very bland and dull urban environment indeed. This is not to say that the corporate powers that be should start a production line of bus stop benches that are each slightly different. I am not interested in difference for its own sake. It is about recognising the richness that comes organically with heterogeneity, history, culture and ecology.


Utilising existing structures such as street furniture, my work rides the dominant culture physically and exposes social controls whilst its quiet nature has the ability to activate the consciousness of a place through subtle markings without disturbing it.'

Monotony (Series 2)
Continuing with the work I started on the theme of 'Monotony', I have completed a second piece of work which spells out the word Monotony on twenty-four separate bins that all follow each other consecutively down Oxford Road. As you can see all the bins used follow the same standardised design and there are hundreds of these bins all over Manchester.

I have used Photoshop to collage all twenty-four bins onto one page. I felt that this was necessary due to the fact that when you apply for opportunities they often require that you submit up to only 3 images of your work. There is noway therefore that I would be able to submit this piece of work as it comprises of twenty-four different images.

This is the first time I have learned to do this with my images and I am pleased with the result. I am however wary about losing the form of  the work as there is something nice about the images being printed out individually as A5 photographs. I am also interested in seeing the images as one continuous line that you have to scroll across to see.

MONOTONY
I have begun a series called 'Monotony'. Thinking about local distinctiveness and globalisation in its broad context, I wanted to draw attention to the monotony of the street furniture that we find in Manchester. I have already done a piece of work with a bus stop bench but I wanted to extend this work and highlight further the homogeneous quality of these identical bus benches that line Oxford road.

This piece links directly with point 4 listed below which reads: Work for local IDENTITY. Oppose monoculture in our fields, parks, gardens and buildings. Resist formulae and automatic ordering from pattern books which homogenise and deplete.