Interview by Eva Coutts

Muriel McIntyre put to use vacant spaces in her parents’ home town in France, displaying her work and involving the local community.

What is your graduation project about?

My graduation project is about creating an ephemeral installation in vacant spaces, that could be; an empty warehouse, an unoccupied shop, an empty shop window, an empty display cabinet; or even, in an empty supermarket refrigerator display unit.

With shops and art spaces closing down, due to the health crisis, I wondered where I could place my work. I was in Alsace, France, unable to get back to Edinburgh, and the prospect of graduating from my parent’s basement was now my reality.

It struck me that these vacant shops could offer such an excellent space to install my work, their windows giving visibility for passersby to observe. I decided that I would inhabit a series of these spaces with a set of elements and objects that I have been using for a while such as; vertical blinds, waiting room chairs, fake furs, small statues and a trench coat.

Can you tell us about some of the things which inspire you and your work? 

In Marc Augé’s book Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, (Le Seuil, 1992), he describes the ‘non-space’ as a space of transit, in which the anonymous human passes through without inserting oneself in a participatory manner. It is a space, such as the airport, the lounge, the waiting room, the lobby or the mall. I find it intriguing to consider these spaces in relation to the body, and how my work, by introducing the object, can break through them.

How have the events over the past year affected your work?

As I have been unable to return to Edinburgh since December 2020, I decided to work in my parent’s basement, with no tools, no materials, no peers. This has been a shift in my process, but has led me to be stronger in what I make and believe in. I have engaged with the community I came to live with, asking my neighbor for their electric saw, a friend for their truck, my father to be my personal driver to get places with my sculpture kit.

Placing my work in a geographical space I never thought I would has confronted me with the questions: who am I making my work for, if it is not in the studio, in a white space, for my peers and tutors – is my work strong enough on its own to venture into rural areas that consider art to be a decorative painting on a wall?