I felt compelled to end my day with something accomplished and pottered around my new studio after a breakfast of porridge and coffee. Who would have guessed this would be the resulting work, a piece I am quite pleased with.
Referencing Birgir Andrésson (1955 -2007) and his work 'Build', a series of cardboard box works with areas of text cut out to create fragile structures. Happy Home was made in homage to the artist while staying in his house Hóll for the Birgir Andrésson residency in Seyðisfjörður Iceland.
A photograph of Birgir hangs in the lounge as a constant reminder of his presence, albeit a pleasant one.
I had brought with me two boxes of Yorkshire Gold tea and as I like the boxes so much I flat packed them to reassemble in Iceland. I was reassembling these boxes when I was reminded of Birgir's work. It seemed fitting to use my English tea boxes to recreate the same box of Birgir I had seen online. As ‘Build’ exists as a series of photographs my conclusion was to film my box within the landscape that surrounds Hóll. Using Birgir's 'Build' as a starting point this piece I feel has veered into something very personal to me. The Yorkshire tea box with its idealist landscape is exposed in all its frailty against the harsh Icelandic elements. This work acknowledges my own frailty when it comes to ever owning a home of my own. For all the streams of information back in the UK plugging home ownership this is a reality that is looking ever more unlikely.
Charles Manson’s song that plays against the wind is about creating your own home without bricks and mortar, abandoning structure and society to live freely. Ultimately this ideal turned out to be the source of one of the most horrendous crimes of the 20th Century.
What is a gesture of thanks and a humorous nod to the work of Birgir Andrésson has become a picturesque video that has within my own personal terror.
A photograph of Birgir hangs in the lounge as a constant reminder of his presence, albeit a pleasant one.
I had brought with me two boxes of Yorkshire Gold tea and as I like the boxes so much I flat packed them to reassemble in Iceland. I was reassembling these boxes when I was reminded of Birgir's work. It seemed fitting to use my English tea boxes to recreate the same box of Birgir I had seen online. As ‘Build’ exists as a series of photographs my conclusion was to film my box within the landscape that surrounds Hóll. Using Birgir's 'Build' as a starting point this piece I feel has veered into something very personal to me. The Yorkshire tea box with its idealist landscape is exposed in all its frailty against the harsh Icelandic elements. This work acknowledges my own frailty when it comes to ever owning a home of my own. For all the streams of information back in the UK plugging home ownership this is a reality that is looking ever more unlikely.
Charles Manson’s song that plays against the wind is about creating your own home without bricks and mortar, abandoning structure and society to live freely. Ultimately this ideal turned out to be the source of one of the most horrendous crimes of the 20th Century.
What is a gesture of thanks and a humorous nod to the work of Birgir Andrésson has become a picturesque video that has within my own personal terror.
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Happy Home, After Birgir Andrésson. 2013 |