Conclusion

Having started to look at different artists who have created powerful and intriguing spaces that have had an impact in me I would like to experiment with creating spaces and shelters that cause you to question your senses and perceptions. By experimenting with translucent materials I want to create ambiguous spaces that are unclear and how you feel as you are within them or as you walk around them. In my research and experimentation so far I have come back to this idea of the transient, momentary and in between. To continue I want to try and create these dialogues between escape and entrapment, light and dark, anxiety and freedom which will be explored through the materials I use and the atmosphere that is created through the spaces. I want to create the opportunity for a transient experience that makes an audience think and observe what they may usually bypass how they associate themselves with those fleeting moments that cannot be captured or replicated.

Cornelia Parker: 'Transitional Object II'

I find this piece very beautiful, different images are thrown up, from encampments to childhood dens and I like this ambiguity. I like that they are hanging and therefore present a juxtaposition between shelter and trap. You are unsure of whether you are being invited into the space for protection and escape or forced in to be suffocated and enclosed. It is this dialogue that the piece throws up that intrigues me. What draws me to this piece especially is the use of netting. I am always drawn to translucent materials that both block and let in light, creating interesting shadows that almost replicate and continue the material itself. The use of net in this shelter shape interests me as it does not shut out the outside, you can see in, poke through it. Again a contrast is created, this time between exposure and enclosure. I would like to experiment with spaces that invoke a similar ambivalence, causing an audience to question their senses and why they associate with the piece in the way they do. I want to create this dialogue between opposites, creating something which explores those in-between states.

Miroslaw Balka: 'How It Is'

I remember experiencing Miroslaw Balka's commission for the turbine hall, it was very powerful. When I entered the pitch black container I felt anxious and uncertain but then I began to feel almost embraced by the darkness, free and lost at the same time. I am drawn to spaces that make you think why you react in a certain way and give you an experience out of the ordinary making you question the ordinary itself. I liked the ambiguous nature of Balka's piece it made subtle suggestions and it was left up to you how to feel. Due to this, your response is ambivalence, a contrast between trapped and embraced, creating a juxtaposed dialogue with potential to evolve and change. Coming from my interest shelters, I would like to create a space that plays with our perceptions, creating momentary, conflicting experiences where there is uncertainty. Uncertainty and the in-between is what interests me. Transient states.

Capturing childhood; shelters

I decided to experiment with the traditional shape of a house, alluding to the wendy houses of childhood aswell as a childs simple perception of how they depict houses in their drawings. I used canvas and quite rough stitching to evoke a sense of the handmade and craft more closely associated with something a child might create. However, I think the way that these houses are made makes them seem haunting and almost ghostlike. I wanted to try and bring together the impossibility of preserving shadow with the impossibility of preserving childhood. They both come down to the impossible fight against time which I feel is so core to the human condition as we constantly strive to repeat the past. I covered the inside in inkiodye and as with the sun prints, no shadows were preserved as the whole interior turned blue. Aesthetically I like the contrast between this plain rough outside with quite a luxurious blue interior, However, the subtle spilling of blue to the outside, somewhat shows the blurring of states and enhances the inbetweeness that I think the pieces evoke. I have deliberately hung them so as to cause a viewer to re-evaluate how they see a small house shape for it is in an undefined context. In hanging them they are left open and probably evoke more of an ambivalent response. Again, this strong sense of momentary contrast comes into play, as with shadows themselves, they are still as they hang but are they about to rise or fall? You do not know,they represent transcience on many different levels.

Mexico's Lost Daughters

After having experimented in all these different ways to try and capture a shadow I found myself to be stuck and not sure how to continue. I read an article in the Observer Magazine about the kidnappings of young pretty girls from rural Mexican villages who are sold into prostitution. As a feminist I have always been intersted in women's issues around the world and these stories really moved me. The fact that the girls are so young and have their childhood stolen from them made me think of the already transient nature of childhood and how this is being violently sped up. I was also effected by the images of the hiding spaces and 'shelters' that are created by the families.

'To avoid the traffickers, families are now taking to extreme measures. Some women hide in secret shelters and homes, the buildings disguised from the outside to look like shopfronts. Many poor farming families have secret places in their shacks where they can hide their sisters and daughters from the constant raids from drug traffickers. A woman who sells beaded necklaces on a beach in Acapulco tells me how her parents created a small crawl space between the wall and the refrigerator where she would be sent to hide if they heard that there were drug traffickers roaming around in their SUVs or on motorcycles. "There were shootings and kidnappings all the time," she tells me. "We don't live there any more. Nobody lives in that village any more."

As I had been led by the idea of transcience I wanted to perhaps represent the transcience and disruption of childhood through the transcient motion of light. The idea of hiding spaces and shelters led me to think immediately of childhood dens or wendy houses and how these can only be used for a small period of time and the inevitability of growing too big as well as linking this to the darker inevitable reality that the young girls will continued to be found and taken. I wanted to try and capture the shadows within an enclosed space and use the shape of a small simple house, alluding to childhood.

Sun Prints

I wanted to look for a medium that would perhaps bring me closer to the preservation of a shadow. I found sun sensitive ink, which exposes to sunlight, therefore if put in a shadow, theoretically the paper or fabric would expose but where there was no sun, the shadow, would be left the colour of the canvas. This process was interesting as the intensity of the blue ink would vary by how sunny it was. I tried to capture many shadows at dusk in my room,however seeing as the light moved around the room more quickly that the dye would expose, the unexposed shape of the shadow would soon turn blue. Through a completely different process I have again showed the impossibility of preserving something so transient. These three large pieces of canvas are testament to that as, although I put them up in different places and at different times of day, they appear almost identical and do not replicate the uniqueness of the shadows that were on them. It is because of this failure that I think the pieces are effective. As a triptyche they are ambiguous and subtle and completely represent the transcience of light, a shadows calm stillness juxtaposed with that intense feeling of potential change.

Mira Schendel

One of the best exhibitions I have been to was the Mira Schendel at the Tate Modern, I think her hanging perspex pieces are so beautiful and powerful, so still yet intesnse and engrossing and I think it is seeing this work that caused my intrigue into attempting to creating hanging installations that transform a space.I was also moved by the use of shadow throughout the exhibition and how Schendel valued the shadow as higher that the perspex shapes that created it. Her use of space was subtle yet powerful and I aspire to create such thoughtful and profound pieces as hers.

Shadow Frames continued

I continued to make more of these frames and chose to hang them together shining light into the space and seeing what it was like to look through these translucent shapes into the other shapes around me. I am always interested in pieces you can move in and walk around causing your perceptions and thoughts to change as you view at different angles walking through,around and within. I have also always been drawn to pieces where the artist has chosen to hang the work. You see them in a completely new light and something that seems like a picture, as this work is made of frames, becomes more sculptural and installative. Also I feel that I have given new importance to mundane materials by hanging them, drawing attention to things you may bypass, much like you may bypass shadows. Again with the piece it is the shadows crossing over eachother that bring the installation together and create intrigue.

Framing the shadow

Here I have continued with my experimentations of different materials. I have used a pair of nylon tights stretched over a picture frame.I like how the layers are varied, creating different shapes as well as different intensities of opacity, much like shadows themselves. I thought stretching them over frames would be interesting as it continues to evoke the idea of preservation, trying to put something within a shape and make it conform to it. However the images shown above are of the shadow which is, in fact, the most intersting part of the piece;when light is shone through it. This carries on with my exploration of shadows'evasive qualities and the impossibility of replicating them.

Casting the Shadow

Here I have tried to set the shadow in latex, using the shapes that I used in the paper hanging piece. I like how as the latex has dried the paper has ripped and cracked, perhaps representing the impossibility of trying to physically constrain something so transient and fleeting as a shadow.

Experimentation: Latex

In attempt to recreate shadows in physical form I decided to experiment with materials that let light threw and others that block it so that new shadows would also be made. I have used latex as it is versatile, you can manipulate how translucent or opaque you would like it through the thickness. I like the ambiguity and interesting textures that have been made through the contrast of materials.

Experimentation: Shadow as object

Here I have tried to replicate the shadows in physical form, firstly putting the shapes into paper. I have then hung them together to create one mass. I feel that this does not evoke the intesity of a shadow and thetefore is a representation of the impossibility of preserving a shadow. By shining light on the sculpture, the shadow shapes as a collective create a new shadow displaying the evasive quality of this transcient process, throwing up new intangible, irreplacable moments.

To further experiment I would like to make these paper shapes in a different material maybe something even more man made and crude looking, to see how this attempt at re-creation makes me feel.

Uta Barth: Sundial Series

In exploring the transient movement of light I looked at Uta Barth's Sundial Series where she recorded the movement of light around her room at dusk everyday. I love the simplicity of the images and the way they beautifully evoke those last moments of light,capturing that fleeting but intense moment between light and dark.

Transcience:Shadows

Leading on from this interest in preservation, I began to think of other things or phenomena that are also impossible to capture. I have always been intrigued by light and the subtle changes of shadows, their transcience. Shadows seem to represent the dichotomy between stillness and calm, and a potential movement and change. No shadow is ever exactly the same.

I began to photograph shadows everywhere I went, collecting them, this process made me aware to the subtle changes of light that I would usually bypass. However, it began to frustrate me that although I had these images, they were merely recordings, they did not replicate the time the place or the emotion that came from that shadow. I decided that I would experiment with different materials to try and recreate the forms of light and dark and through this, inevitably, the impossibility of making a shadow something tangible.

Preservation

I have always been interested in the idea of Preservation.The piece in the Tate Britian collection that I am most drawn to, is Anya Gallacio's 'Preserve Beauty'. The irony of the piece in relation to the title is quite shocking, however I feel that the peace is subtle and beautiful a representation of the impossibility of preservation as the thousands of bright flowers have grown brow and produced a dark liquid that stains the walls of the Tate.I feel that the work is almost a monument to the inevitable failure of preservation and a human obsession with a fight against time and it is through thinking about this that I began.