Mementos

Mementos was an exhibition I am very proud of and is a great foundation on which it build my practice. With all aspects I feel that myself and Pip really executed what we find interesting and relevant to both our practices. For me it held all things that I consider important and relevant to art as a format, and was succesful in avoiding the stale, cold feeling of a white-walled gallery space.

I had always shied away from being a part of a large group of people for this module as I felt that with greater numbers comes a higher risk of a less coherent exhibition. Mine and Pip's work had originally started more similar but as both our projects evolved, the differences grew. I feel that by this happening it gave our works more individualism whilst still retaining underlining, shared themes. Our presentation methods were also going to be within the same field but as my project progressed it moved into the film spectrum, which I feel gave as much diversity as possible being in a duo. I think the room choice we made was important also as my room was road side which I felt added a surprising dynamic to my road movies. It was something that could have hindered the experience but I felt that it enriched it. Similarly Pip's room being at the back of the house gave it a meditative and calm atmosphere which really suited her content. I thought Pip's work was a monumental tribute and a true testament to her relationship with her grandmother. The quality of craft work and well thought out ideas coupled with genuine artifacts gave her ideas a full and rich body of work both with emotional gravitas and visual power.

I ordered the films so that 'Drive' was first, finishing with 'Cana', this was a very conscious decision as I felt that within that order it held two aspects of Art I find continually compelling. Firstly starting with the mundane, within 'Drive's' opening scene of being a baron highway stretching on for what seems like forever, slowly building to the abstract and pulsating climax. From this second half of 'Drive' it leads into 'Cana's' atmospheric cloud of sound and visual. I always knew that 'Cana' would be the more appealing of the two as it's much more open to interpretation and has much more of a nostalgic vibe. 'Drive' always felt like an opener to 'Cana' which is interesting as I produced 'Cana' first with 'Drive' being the last film within the series. The feedback was that people enjoyed the experience but preferred 'Cana' as it was much softer but kept with on their toes with the audio and the visuals. 'Drive'is much more of an endurance by comparison but is needed to give 'Cana' context. "It was as if you'd closed your eyes and the changing colours were from light falling on your eyelids" -Louise Hastings has summed up something that I have been trying to do for sometime and I'm very happy that this was picked up on and was something that someone saw. The most uncomfortable aspect of the night was that I had to start and end the films, it was something that had to be done to best facilitate the films. The single most uncomfortable aspect was when the films would end, people felt compelled to clap as I was in the room, If I could have changed anything about the night it would have been to rig it so that I didn't have to be there.

Having free drinks, cakes and a bonfire was something that we both felt was important and possible as we were housing the event within Pip's home. The setting and the atmosphere was something we were happy to welcome with our event as we felt it necessary and important to making what we considered a 'good' event. Overall the night was a very relaxed affair and felt like a success and an interesting end to my source material gathered last summer.