Ineffectual Retardant : April 2013

30/04/2013

Paper Gallery - WIP

I have been approached by Manchester-based Paper Gallery to be part of the forthcoming show, Performing Paper, which will take place in June.
They had seen my Morphplinth work and the Fanny Magnets I've been making, so I am going to use it as a chance to explore some of the issues raised with those works.

Watch this space

Porn Shopping

25/04/2013

Hop, Skip, Jump! - Engagement Activities

The premise of my trainer wing kits is to encourage people from the local community to tweet/ e-mail/ post their 'personal best' to the team working on a new sculpture for the center, these will be displayed on LED banners on the sculpture.

We arrived at Putlands at about 2:15pm expecting to be met with a community group, however it became apparent that the commissioning group hadn't really organised anything as they were working on another commission. After discussing the foot-fall and client demographic, and having sat for an hour with only about 6 people milling about/entering the gym, we decided it would probably be best to relocate to the leisure center's sister-center which was closer to Tunbridge Wells town center.

~~We stayed at Putlands until 5pm, after I had convinced two small girls to part with their personal bests in exchange for a kit each.~~

~~Tunbridge Wells Leisure Center was a larger establishment with a swimming pool so we were hopeful to have more people to give kits to.~~

It was difficult to get anyone to speak to us, at points I felt a little bit like a charity mugger. Despite this, I did manage to convince a few kids to take kits and give their personal bests; mainly by my pose-striking, showing off my totally super-mondo-awesome boot wings.

The next day, we managed to get a table to set up our stall on, and this gave us more success. There weren't many children around, but after explaining the project to mothers and grandparents, there was great interest and uptake of kits.

In all I think we managed to give out about half of the kits I made up, I was disappointed that more didn't go but I don't think that they will be wasted as there will be an opening for the sculpture, and they should be given out then.

Had the commissioning group organised a couple of community groups for us to work with, I think the project would have gone much better; I had taken down with me loads of things to decorate the wings with, and we didn't get to use any of it. I suppose you live and learn.

I'm really pleased with the kits, as were everyone else who saw them - that was my task for the commission, so from my perspective it has gone well. However, I don't know how many personal bests will come from the kits due to the disjointed nature of our engagement; I hope it was in some way successful.

set up in Putlands, ready for a craft group that never was

too cool for school

Trainers collected to be recycled into the main sculpture

Chris demonstrating a kit

how could you not want something from this?

23/04/2013

Hop, Skip, Jump!

I was approached by Ultimate Holding Company to help with their current commission based in Tunbridge Wells "Hop Skip Jump"
Putlands Leisure centre in Tunbridge Wells will be the home of a new temporary sculptural installation made from recycled trainers, donated by the community. The sculpture will take the form of a chandelier-like hop plant, in reference to Kent's hop growing heritage.
Personal bests will be collected from the community via twitter, e-mail and postcard and these are to be displayed on LED message boards incorporated in the chandelier....

and that's where I come in.

I was asked provide a community engagement project to encourage the users of Putlands Leisure center and the local area. The brief was to create a kit based on the theme "Elevate Your Sole" with which the user could make a pair of wings that would lace onto their trainer.
Having brought me on board after seeing my cross stitch kits, the team thought it would be a nice idea to have sewing kit which would result in a kind of quilted fabric wing to lace onto the shoe. However, after putting together a prototype I expressed my concerns about the complexity of this kind of kit when used by children.
The kit needed to be as simple as possible to complete, with little or no cutting out.
After much stressing over how to make the design work, I settled on the idea of using craft foam and took it to the team who thought this was a good compromise. It also meant I could have the wing shapes laser cut so SAVED MY HANDS.
I was informed that we had ended up with 100+ sets of wings (we had estimated 80 pairs) and so, after designing the packaging and directions, I was tasked with putting the packs together.

LONG TIME TASK. - cut out paper insert, cut and fold instructions, add these and wings to pack, add sachet of glue, place sequins in a small bag before adding to pack, add selection of foam pieces, seal. REPEAT X 108

I am pretty pleased with how they've turned out though, I will bring news of the workshops when they have happened.