Outline

A white line of tape and a shadow: site responsive work made for Kettfest 2015 in new retail area under redevelopment. I found myself in a room with no light source or electricity and adapted, experimenting with tape and shadow using a builders lamp. A single line of barrier tape gave a shadow reaching back to the wall, reading as a rectangle or door, sheet of glass or imagined space, almost like a thought. This linked to the developers idea of creating new retail spaces. The white lines also looked like poles adding a reference of the firemans pole, the space being previously a fire station. I stopped people from entering the middle of the room ( passing in front of the lamp disrupted the shadows ) and that action then paved the way for conversation. I asked them to describe what they saw, drew attention to a small part of the work and then the whole thing. This process deconstructed the work so that everyone got it without me having to tell them anything and they loved it. People who saw nothing when they arrived, left convinced the room was full of spaces and they were lit up by that journey of discovery. The whole event became a sort of performance with me leading people through this process.... some people came back with others and one lady brought in her other child and said..... it's okay she would lead him through it! And I found them both animated... it was all rather amazing... and people were so grateful and happy... there were lots of people, sometimes virtually queues forming.... so crazy! And many more art going public than I would have thought. People enjoyed the challenging aspects of the work and commented/linked the work to Tate Modern/ MOMA style. Great fun, especially as I had been concerned that the work was less accessible than I would have liked.