This project is an investigation of the conditions of support for artistic and personal agency, in particular the environments and mental constructs/statements that support the creative process. This project also serves to project or illustrate a possible ‘voice’ of the building speaking in the first person with phrases like "I Love Your Work" and "I've Got Your Back".
The failure of the building to actually speak these sentiments underscores the lack of a particular utility in art/architecture. Revealing that the building and its installations can’t actually support anyone as the phrases might suggest, or can they? These phrases also become peculiar and perhaps also cliché when stated generally and not to any one person in particular. We can ponder on the affect of them and adopt them nonetheless. And there is a “what if” type of response also, where we reflect on the possibility of the space and the creative process offering this support and sentiment. It serves as a promise and potential failure of optimism and positive psychology. I am interested in what it takes to support the creative process – how creative resilience is developed and fostered. These statements also bring up questions relating to support and our innate sense of resilience and positivity. I am interested in this work interacting with the uncertainty of new artists in residence, as they have arrived here without their usual network of support to make a project that is entirely new to them. It also speaks to non-artists/visitors as ‘insiders’ and maybe artists also. I would like viewers to feel re-assured and encouraged and curious. The outside wall also ‘speaks’ to the neighbourhood, folks in the back courtyard in particular. |
I LOVE YOUR WORK
A text installation project at Elsewhere Residency. Greensborough, NC |