In Memoriam

The title of my current work - In Memoriam

In the beginning – Where my ideas began: Loss, morning and memory: The death of my mother-in-law.

A photographed image of my mother-in-law’s sitting room was used for the property description when the house was made ready to be put on the market following her death. The image recorded the last family visit and memory of the family house that had often been alive with visitors, children and music and was now still, and lifeless. Family photographs, knitting, poetry books, fruit pastels, and oddments that reflected life, were nowhere to be seen. It was deserted and all that nourished the family had gone.

A few weeks later I was reminded of this memory when I saw film footage of empty bleached corals reefs, also devoid of life, grey and eerie. Coral that was once teeming with colourful life, and recently there until pollution and rising sea temperatures had taken their toll. The brightly coloured algae that nourished the coral, fish and other sea-creatures that fed off it were all but gone, leaving it lifeless.

This loss and how to remember it was something I wanted to capture in my next body of work

Pascal Morabito - ‘The Memory Pyramid’

(http://www.pascalmorabitoart.com)

I didn’t quite know how I was going to represent the sadness I feel about the demise of our precious ecosystem in my work until I quite by chance came upon a sculpture, ‘The Memory Pyramid’ whilst on holiday in Normandy. It’s a memorial dedicated to the young soldiers that lost their lives during the WW11.

It was sculpted using sand from the Normandy landing beaches, and the found items left by the soldiers. This sowed a seed as to how I might respond to loss; perhaps I too could make a memorial for what is being lost today.

I thought about how many of us have become estranged from our natural environment and how little contact there is with it as we zoom past it in our polluting cars or fly over it in even more poluting aeroplanes. I thought about the relationship with the land that previous generations had had. First nation peoples are reported to have had a practical and spiritual relationship with the land, sky and the animals that also inhabited it. Their totem poles told of cultural stories and sorrows that befell them.

That’s was it; my work could tell the story of the lost beautiful coral represented in the form of a totem pole. Although my current work is about loss and the memory of what has been lost, my main objective is to respond to the loss caused by anthropological climate change.

Phoebe Cummings - Triumph of the immaterial

(https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/articles/phoebe-cummings-is-named-the-winner-of-the-womans-hour-craft-prize/)

I had followed the BBC Womans Hour Craft awards in 2017 and remembered that the winner, Phoebe Cummings didn’t fire her delicate work. Not because she is an environmentalist but because she didn’t have a kiln. In subsequent interviews she talked about her work referencing fragility.

For my work unfired porcelain could reference the fragility of the ecosystem particularly as the coral plays an important part within it. I also felt comfortable with the idea that I wouldn’t be firings my work and therefore wouldn’t be contributing to yet more stuff cluttering up the world because I would be recycling the clay and therefore it would be sustainable!

Using porcelain, I would hand build a totem pole and try to emulate the beauty of the coral in the hope that it would speak of the sadness of its loss. I appreciated that it would take months to build but for me this wasn’t a hardship. I find hand building a useful time to contemplate on my work and what I’m trying to convey.

However, unfortunately, it became obvious that the work was just too fragile to build into a totem pole and transporting the work would be near impossible. I had to concede and fire the work. I did feel I’d somehow let myself down but was consoled by the thought that even though fired, it is still fragile, so I haven’t lost the fragility reference.

What drives my current practice?

The following is a reminder of the consequence of not paying heed to what is going on around us.

Alfred Lord Tennyson - "In Memoriam”

Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved, that beech will gather brown, This maple burn itself away.

Riehl, M. - Exploitation of Lignite mines in Germany, (https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/michel-riehl-exploitation-of-lignite-mines-in-germany/)

Despite the world slowly waking up to anthropological climate change and the role fossil fuel plays, permission is still being granted to mine for coal. I feel we don’t see enough images that show us the cost of our lifestyles on the environment.

Artists that have been part of my research and inspiration

David Bucland ‘Black Ice’(https://www.bucklandart.com)

I was inspired to research David Bucland because he was wary about being categorised as an art activist. This made me question my own take on this issue and I concluded that through his art he effectively conveyed the implications of warming oceans as a result of anthropological climate change without compromising his artistic integrity.

For me, I feel we are artists of our time and therefore we respond to issues of our time and climate change is one such issue.

Other examples of some of the artists whose work I have been researching because they have created works on loss, memory and memorial

Maya Zack - The living room

http://www.galleriamlf.com/artisti/15/maya-zack/) Is an audiovisual installation. Zack is honouring ‘what once was, what was lost and now remembered’. It’s quiet, reflective and captivating and demonstrates that art doesn’t need to be all sing and dancing in order to bestow its message. This is an image along with a softly spoken voice conveying deeply moving memories more precious than jewels.

Menashe Kadishman’s - Fallen leaves(https://fotoeins.com/2013/04/02/shalechet-jewish-museum-berlin/) To take photographs of this work I had to walk on thousands of pressed flat metal heads as there is no other way of fully engaging with the installation. Walking on the heads contributed to the disturbing nature of the work – the grinding clunking of metal and the ache throughout my body as I walked on them was an unforgettable experience. The work is said to be unfinished and now translates into a clear reminder that anti Semitism is still prevalent, and therefore this work demonstrates why we need to remember the Holocaust.

Peter Eisenman - Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe)

I’m interested in this work because it is a memorial. According to Eisenman, the slabs are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. The design is intended to represent a new radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial.

Tania Kovats - Bleached.

(https://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/tania-kovats-troubled-waters/)

Kovats was given permission to remove a portion of the coral reef to cast in her studio. She describes her vitrine containers as ‘dry aquariums’. Her intention is to draw our attention to the complexity of these organic structures and the present rate of their decline. Locked in show cases and being the only evidence we’ll have of what was once the spectacular rainforests of the oceans. Fabulous exhibition, aesthetically intriguing, within a newly refurbished white gallery space. Sterile; the viewer could have been in a museum’s achieve wearing the white gloves.

Temple of Hephaestus & Roman Pillars in Nyon

(https://fineartamerica.com/featured/temple-of-hephaestus-doric-columns-one-bob-phillips.html)

I considered my work to be totem pole whist I was creating it, but when for the first time it was erected I couldn’t help but be reminded of ancient Roman and Greek columns

I started to reflect on the purpose of these ancient columns: their strength, their beauty and the fact that they supported buildings and represented civilisations now all but lost. I couldn’t help but see a comparison between the columns and the coral. The coral is integral to supporting ocean life and the ecosystem, and now there is a real possibility that it too will be something of the past. I also noted that my totem/column built in sections similar to the way these ancient columns were built.

I am showing this image of my totem/column here because I feel it illustrates the similarity between my work and the columns previously mentioned. It has a similar air of wistfulness; a quiet reflective quality, that of a sentinel and the Temple of Juno Lacinia column.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Juno_Lacinia_(Crotone) When on exhibition at the Holburne Museum, Bath I also felt that it lent itself to a museum setting; a place where rare items are remembered and kept safe.

I feel I have achieved the impact that I was striving for; a memorial that is quietly asking the viewer to be mindful of what we are losing.

For more information please see the following bibliography

Bibliography

Figure 1: Hughes, T. (2018) No title. Image not available

Figure 2: Marshall, J. (2016) A Blenny on the reef, Coral Watch. Available at: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/in-pictures-great-barrier-reef-bleaching/ (Accessed: 10 April 2019)

Figure 3: Hughes, T. (2018) Barriers. Image not available

Figure 4: Hughes, T. (2018) Dirty Bath. Image not available

Figures 5 - 6: Hughes, T. (2018) Pyramide de memoire, Images not available. Info available at: http://www.pascalmorabitoart.com/art-bio#2000 (Accessed: 8 April 2019)

Figure 7: Thwaites, J. E. (1923) Haida Skolka's totem pole. Available at: https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/loc/id/1906 Accessed: 10 April 2019)

Figure 8: Cummings , P. Triumph of the immaterial, Available at: https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/articles/phoebe-cummings-is-named-the-winner-of-the-womans-hour-craft-prize/ (Accessed: 8 April 2019)

Figures 9 - 12: Hughes, T. (2018) No title. Image not available

Figure 13: Tennyson, A. (1850) In Memoriam. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam_A.H.H. (Accessed: 8 April 2019)

Figures 14 – 15: Riehl, M. (No date)Exploitation of Lignite mines in Germany, Available at: https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/michel-riehl-exploitation-of-lignite-mines-in-germany/

Accessed: 10 April 2019)

Figure 16: (JunepA) (2017) Jugendnetzwerk für politische Aktionen. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/people/130922786@N06/ Accessed: 10 April 2019)

Figure 17: Frodesiak , A. Map. (2018) Available at: https://www.google.com/search?q=By+Anna+Frodesiak+(talk+·+contribs) Accessed: 10 April 2019)

Figure 18: Buckland, D. (2006) Black Ice 1. Available at: https://www.bucklandart.com/

Accessed: 14 April 2019)

Figure 19: Kovats, T. (2015) Evaporation, Available at:

http://www.anothermag.com/design-living/8110/tania-kovats-on-evaporating-sculptures

(Accessed: 14 April 2019)

Figure 20: Zack, M. (2009) Living Room IV, Available at: http://www.galleriamlf.com/artisti/15/maya-zack/ (Accessed: 8 April 2019)

Figures 21-22: Kadishman, M. (1997) Fallen leaves, Available at: https://fotoeins.com/2013/04/02/shalechet-jewish-museum-berlin/(Accessed: 9 April 2019)

Figure 23: Eisenman, P. (2004) Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe (Accessed: 9 April 2019) Figure 24:

Kovats, T. (2018)Bleached, Available at: https://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/tania-kovats-troubled-waters/ (Accessed: 14 April 2019)

Figure 25: Phillips, B. (2004) Temple of Hephaestus, Athens. Available at:

(Accessed: 12 April 2019)

Figure 26: Daugelaite, J. Roman Pillars in Nyon, Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Columns_in_Nyon.jpg (Accessed: 12 April 2019)

Figure 27: Hughes, T. (2019) In Memoriam, Holburne Museum. Image not available

Figure 28: Baldi, S. (2007) The remaining column of the Temple of Juno Lacinia . Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capo_Colonna2_retouched.png (Accessed: 12 April 2019)