PRACTICE: Tactile in Texture

How do you define space?

Often I find this relentlessly perplexing. Space, to me is free, moving and fluctuating around us, it never holds any true form or dimension. I often experiment with the way in which space can be 'divided', how in which our perception of space can be manipulated through creating 'walls' within space.

What is a 'wall' and how can this represent solidness and physicality?

Because of this, I find myself drawn to materials that exist in a uncertain medium between opaqueness and transparency. There is always ambiguity, and I feel that my work should be an enquiry, a tool in which to allow people to question space in the same way. These tactile, moving, sensuous materials often allow me to play with this idea of the divide, of the barrier. Nothing is definite, nothing if finite or as simple as what you physically see. Is there such a thing as a barrier when space is constantly flowing around us. Is this actually a case of a somewhat mental barrier instead?

Reverse of Volume (2012) by Yasuaki Onishi

The Garden Document (2010) by Edith Maybin

Hero (2002) directed by Zhang YiMou

PRACTICE: A Study of Corridors

Anyone who knows me, will know that I am fascinated by corridors, both from an architectural perspective and from a psychological perspective (which is why I often find my favourite examples of corridor shots from film).

Corridors act as a transitional bridge between spaces, their function is to take us from one destination to the next. Very rarely does is a corridor constructed to be a destination in itself. This is why the corridor has often proved to be such a dynamic setting in film. It preludes to a sense of expectation, of something beyond and unknown. I like exploring the idea of the corridor as being the illusion of infinity, of a route that extends so far, we can no longer see its end.

Various Screenshots taken from Film

REVIEW: [EXXOPOLIS] by Architects of Air @ Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham

EXXOPOLIS by Architects of Air
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham

In early June, the Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham hosted a lunimarium installation featuring latticework, and luminescent seams which create colours of light against iridescent hues to create an sensory immersive experience.

"A lunamarium is a sculpture people enter to be moved to a sense of wonder at the beauty of light and colour..."

Seeing EXXOPOLIS from the outside reminded me of a children's bouncing castle, the inflated plastic and children-friendly 'bounciness'. The true extraordinary spectrum of colour was concealed by an exterior of grey so it was hard to say what lay beyond. All visitors are asked to take their shoes off beforehand, and I wasn't surprised to see that most of the visitors were families with young children.

The images of EXXOPOLIS do not do the actual experience justice. The saturation of colour from space to space is so vivid and almost blinding in some cases, that it is only after your intital encounter with it that you become comfortable with the colours around you. The space is like a cave, divided by large coves that are led by a series of smaller tunnels and passageways that interlink every space together. Each space contains a colour, from green to red to blues. What surprised me was the intensity of the colour in each space, especially where one moves from one space to the next, the difference in hue is quite hard to negotiate in sight. Due to the nature of the material and the way EXXOPOLIS is made, it gives you a seamless impression, an enveloping series of colour and light that seems to invade from all sides. In some cases you need a few moments to adjust to the intensity before you are able to marvel and wonder at the otherworldiness of your environment.

"It is a paradox that that such a stimulating environment can simultaneously be so calming. Many people find the lunimaria a place for rest or meditation."

PRACTICE: Jack in a Box

There is a really interesting border between comfort and confinement. The smaller spaces are, the more we tend to feel uncomfortable and constrained. At the same time, some people are reassured by smaller spaces, by a sanctuary, a pocket of space big enough for themselves alone. Just by comparing cenophobia and claustrophobia for example; one is the fear of barren, open spaces, and the other is a fear of crowded, tight spaces. The fact that we are able to pivot towards either extreme demonstrates just how much space can affect us. Can a smaller space become a refuge or a prison?

Above the Below (2003) by David Blaine

1 Without (2010) by Wannes Goetschalckx

1 Kind (2007) by Wannes Goetschalckx

Wannes Goetschalckx is a performance artist who works a lot with restricted spaces. He looks at the emotional and physical in relation to body and space. He aims to reveal the hidden and apparent constraints in human life, the coexistence of comfort and pain, exposure and enclosure, cage and shelter.

"1 Without" is a video installation featuring Goetschlackx doing different activities in various sized wooden boxes, exploring the notion of captivity. It is reminiscent of what children do when they find empty boxes and containers to hide or play inside. From a young age, we learn to explore with our imagination. As we get older we tend to associate smaller spaces more and more with confinement and not play. We see spaces only on the surface, and we no longer seem to possess that curiosity for creating spaces of our own.

'Watch Where You Look' (2012) by Vivienne Du

The Box Task Day 16, Big Brother 6 (2005) courtesy of Channel 4

A task from Big Brother 6 required all the housemates to stay in their assigned cardboard boxes for as long as possible. Due to the nature of Big Brother, the activity was posed as a fun and entertaining treatment of the housemates' endurance. At first the housemates seemed to enjoy their new challenge but clearly as the time went on, the confinement of staying in a box for hours on end clearly became too unbearable for most. Three managed to stay in their boxes for just over 26 hours, you wonder whether they were simply not as affected by space or their determination drove them to stay.

Freak Like Me, courtesy of BBC3

REVIEW: [1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces] @ V&A, London

For an exhibition, nineteen architects were invited to submit a concept design for buildings informed by ideas of retreat and refuge, these were all designed in mind to be small in scale.

"the power that architecture has to silence all external noise, to focus attention on ones very own existence, away from everyday life and in the present moment, and to initiate a private dialogue with the space around us."

Ark (2010) by Rintala Eggertsson

Ark (2010) Rintala Eggertsson

In-Between Architecture (2010) by Studio Mumbai

Woodshed (2010) by Rural Studio

"Pallasmaa has expressed his concern that architecture has lost its connection with the body, that is has lost its potential for tactility and sensuous curiosity," and "Steven Holl indicated that in a world cluttered with a chaos of visual information we have developed a numbness in relation to the space around us, becoming increasingly passive in the way we read, interpret and consume our architecture."

"...the idea is to leave domestic surroundings and your everyday thoughts behind and enter a space that puts you into a state of wonder. Its a retreat, but unlike introverted contemplation, these spaces force you to interact with your surroundings. When entering, reality gradually transforms; things are not necessarily as they appear. The idea is to create a dreamlike atmosphere, where the borders between reality and illusion are blurred."

"we hope the visitor will experience a balanced joy -using body and mind to travel to unknown spaces."

Everything these architects have been discussing has a direct parallel in my work. I want people to be able to engage with spaces with a new sense of wonder and curiosity, to let their body and minds interact and immerse fully in the space around them and to forget the rest of reality.

PRACTICE: The Childhood Hideaways

At some point, we have all draped blankets across our bedroom, or the living room to create our own dens and spaces. It seems to be a common childhood activity from our memories, building our own escapes. Tents, and dens and small spaces that we use to transport us to a different place. Our imagination was able to take us to a parallel space than the one we created. I love that idea that we instinctively create spaces for ourselves, trying to mould and change the world to fit us, rather than trying to make ourselves fit into the world. This type of innocent play and exploration slowly leaves us as we mature. It's very reminiscent of stories like "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe", how our need for imagination powers our world. I feel like it's something very rooted in my interests. Remembering the love I had for creating spaces of my own out of anything I could find, bed sheets, curtains, duvets, pillows, just to create my own hideaway, my own escape, my own space and world.

The Hiding Place (1998) by Bjore Bjarre

In a way I suppose that is still what I am hoping to capture in my work, that same childlike wonder and curiosity for building spaces and playing within them. I think that it is nice to be reminded of a safe haven we liked to keep as children, and even now we are still moulding the world to try and fit round us as best we can.