Loss, Reclamation and Recovery
This installation began as a personal obsession to salvage from second hand and junk shops, material remnants of yarns, cottons, wools and cloth. The materials I salvaged for were the kind you might find at the bottom of your mother’s knitting bag or your great aunt’s linen cupboard; materials, I imagined, that had originally been acquired with the intention of making something, but had been saved, abandoned, stored, tucked or shelved away. In contrast to this cultures’ pre occupation with the new and the disposable, that these materials were being held, even treasured, suggested to me that the act of keeping, indicated their worth. It struck me that the very act of saving, both suggested and instigated acts of finishing, and I began to incorporate these salvaged materials into my own work.
While seeking out these specific types of materials, from our cultural landscape of trash heaps, cast offs and discarded objects/ materials, I became fascinated by their histories and origins. My search became a type of intimate archeology of others, of whom I had never met and could only imagine based on the materials left behind. I wondered who had kept/ saved these materials and why were they being discarded/ disposed of now? I wondered had they ever been used? And if so, for what purposes? As I wondered about the original intentions for these materials, it seemed to me as if I were searching the bottom drawers of someone else’s abandoned and unfinished intentions.
This three-part installation centers around shelved materials, seemingly awaiting their use in a time continuum. The shelved objects provide the mechanism for the narrative. These shelves, an alter to the everyday, suggest a mundane, yet personal, intimate viewing space where the materials have been reclaimed and integrated into the work. The cups, socks and coats, both suggest and deny a human presence. The cups, socks and coats are the empty containers for those that have come and gone and who have reached for and replaced these objects.
Although this installation suggests a type of nostalgia, a longing for time lost and found, it is not the kind of nostalgia that suggests a return to, but rather, an indication of the loss and a grieving for these materials and the people who once held, hoped and intended for them.
While seeking out these specific types of materials, from our cultural landscape of trash heaps, cast offs and discarded objects/ materials, I became fascinated by their histories and origins. My search became a type of intimate archeology of others, of whom I had never met and could only imagine based on the materials left behind. I wondered who had kept/ saved these materials and why were they being discarded/ disposed of now? I wondered had they ever been used? And if so, for what purposes? As I wondered about the original intentions for these materials, it seemed to me as if I were searching the bottom drawers of someone else’s abandoned and unfinished intentions.
This three-part installation centers around shelved materials, seemingly awaiting their use in a time continuum. The shelved objects provide the mechanism for the narrative. These shelves, an alter to the everyday, suggest a mundane, yet personal, intimate viewing space where the materials have been reclaimed and integrated into the work. The cups, socks and coats, both suggest and deny a human presence. The cups, socks and coats are the empty containers for those that have come and gone and who have reached for and replaced these objects.
Although this installation suggests a type of nostalgia, a longing for time lost and found, it is not the kind of nostalgia that suggests a return to, but rather, an indication of the loss and a grieving for these materials and the people who once held, hoped and intended for them.