
Organising, containing, tidying, carrying.
I’m fascinated by the ways in which containers and vessels are themselves transported and stored, and by the potential for objects generated by human activity to both enable and work to the detriment of movement and 'progress'.
This interest in where and how the distinction between a cultural artefact and a piece of detritus sits extends to chains of decay and reuse: whether that’s thinking about landfill and boxes in the attic, or Philip Guston’s ‘crapola’, or prehistoric midden heaps, compost bins and stock cooked from bones, or how people once used and reused rags.
With castle (dog-box), I wanted to see how a pile of ‘leftover’ objects might provide a way to unpack a situation or event; like an inventory notating a life that has been lived, or grave goods in a tomb acting as provision for a less tangible journey or existence to come.
Otherwise, I’ll be spying on dogs. Scheming on how to suck them into another dimension. All for me.
I keep coming back to old images of polar explorers and travelling pedlars all lumbered up with their equipment. And to imagining big piles of tat and red rubber dog bones.
This box has acted as a vessel for my interests over the past couple of months. I needed a framework open enough to accommodate new works, ideas, and adaptations as they came up, but together enough to examine all these things alongside one another... a modular container to be packed up and unpacked and then packed again in various configurations.
In the future, I can imagine using it as a mobile station for printmaking workshops and storytelling sessions. Or as a pot-stand in the garden.