A day for wrapping presents

I tentatively entered a large old building. The roof had collapsed Throwing wooden debris to the floor I collected the wood and wrapped each piece in foil, and Then replaced these ‘parcels’ to the floor. The foil parcels reflected the light of The sky pouring through the holes created By the absence of the wood inside the foil. Kremnica, 28 November 1996 ********************************************************************************** ‘A day for wrapping presents’ is part of a body of work created from 1996-97 while Artist-in-Residence at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava during the Pépinières Européennes Pour Jeunes Artistes program. When I conducted the residency, Slovakia was a country of transition. Behind it lay the bland security of its recent past while its future seemed exciting yet uncertain. I tried to grasp its atmosphere during this critical period, as I immersed myself in Slovakia at grassroots using my experiences as a focus for creativity. A passage from my diary continued: ‘Challenges and a new strange environment I think is giving my work an edge and strength’. My connection with Bratislava and its surroundings developed as I created installations on location. I was interested in people’s responses to my work in environments that were familiar to them and not just within the gallery space. Photographs of my work were presented alongside short written passages in a small book ‘A mountain of fortunes made from the pages of my diary’, printed in Bratislava in 1997 with support from the British Council. I aspired to transcend the inaccessibility sometimes felt by the viewer towards an artwork, allowing intimacy to develop between viewer and artist as something of the experience of my creative work takes place through the turn of each page.