My artistic
practice derives from my interest in historical artefacts, situations and
objects – survivals into the modern era which provide a memory stimulus and form
the basis of our ‘knowledge’ of an event or person.
“Psychogeography
is the point at which psychology and geography collide, a means of exploring
the behavioural impact of urban space” (p10, Coverley, 2010) and these two elements
have resonance when recording my personal response to time and place.
The Arab
Spring Network is inspired by a journey I undertook from
Carthage to Cairo through Tunisia, Libya and Egypt coinciding with the time of
Mohamed Bouaziz’s self-immolation in 2010. This act of protest may be regarded
as the start of the ongoing Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East (The Guardian,
2012). I wanted to use the psychogeography implicit in my journey as the
starting point for my final BA Art & Design piece.
I decided to try different methods such as an
unfolding scroll manuscript like the original On The Road typescript by
Jack Kerouac or a Road Map inspired by Hamish Fulton’s work at the Ikon Gallery
but found these to be insignificant.
Trial Mapping
I
had seen some ancient terracotta heads in The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford that had echoes in a group of mannequin heads I photographed
in Tripoli, Libya. I then spent some
time working on different ideas based on these heads, also referencing Jaume
Plensa’s work at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Mannequin heads in Tripoli Old Town
I
painted purchased heads, manipulated them with wax, bound them with string and
bandages. I then carved heads from
different materials, sowing seeds to on one of them to represent a re-blooming
of democracy.
‘Tribal’ mannequin heads
referencing the national colours of Tunisia (red & white);
Libya (green) and
Egypt (red, white and black)
I decided to
refer to the historical places I visited during my North African journey where
I viewed and photographed many mosaics in Roman urban sites. I have long been interested in mosaics both
historically and in modern interpretations like Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s work at
Tottenham Court Road underground station 1983-1985 and Oliver Budd’s 1968
Birmingham work.
Mosaic is an art
form that is infinitely variable – it can be artisan and utilitarian (as in
modern house numbers or a Cave Canem
sign from The House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii) or a great work of art.
The historical mosaics in North Africa ranged
from rather amateur local interpretations right up to the most detailed and
well-preserved pieces by master craftsmen from Rome. It is survival art and has a dualism – both
utilitarian and aesthetic - that appeals to me.
I am very
interested in textile arts. One of my
previous pieces was a handmade Gaza dress referencing the world’s earliest
humanoid sculptures (6100 BC from 'Ain Ghazal) which I saw on a visit to Amman
in Jordan.
The combination
of the two art forms – textiles and mosaics - that have been of interest to me
throughout my life gave me the direction I needed for this project.
The history of
textiles is fragmented and incomplete but an Egyptian canopy quilt produced in
980 BC is considered to be the oldest of a very few “solitary survivors of an
originally very complex and inclusive tradition of patchwork textiles” (p19,
von Gwinner, 1988). Because of the “visible role of women in [the Arab Spring] protests”
(I newspaper, 2012) I was also interested in using an art form which
traditionally has been regarded as ‘woman’s work’.
I decided to
produce a fabric mosaic as, in traditional quilt works, many fragments and pieces
combine to make a whole. I felt that
this references and echoes the many different small actions amongst the fabric
of society within the Middle East that evolved into a network for change.
Also “The work
of sewing quilts, in which old clothes are torn up to make something new and
useful, is seen .... as a new creation after destruction, a symbolic act in the
sense that something dead is reawakened to life”. (p37, von Gwinner, 1988).
I am a member of
the Quilters’ Guild and visited their Museum in York as part of my
research. There I decided not to use a
‘traditional’ type of patchwork pattern as they had mainly evolved during the
18th and 19th centuries.
Again referencing the mosaic tesserae, I decided to use simple squares.
I looked at
different sizes for the squares. I
thought about using a very small 25x25cm square to express the amount and
number of many people’s input into the revolutionary process but realised that
this would mean that the detail would vanish.
It would also be very difficult to work with so I decided to use a
template of 70x70cm which would enable the detail from my journey photographs
to be detected. I printed the parts that
I felt had significance to this work onto Inkjet printing Jacquard Silk fabric
sheets and appliquéd them onto fabric squares.
It took some
time to make a critical mass of squares but as soon as this was reached I laid
out them out on the floor to check for impact and also presented the ideas I
had at a group tutorial with students and staff at Birmingham City University. I was quite encouraged with the response to
my project outline.
Once I had
produced a large number of squares I had to decide how to ‘attach’ them to each
other. I tried a number of different
methods random and more formal.
Traditional
quilts are not pieced in this way and I decided that I needed to ‘mount’ my
individual squares to fabric rather than try to join them together. As I thought about this I realised that the
revolutionary movement had involved a network of contacts and activity and that
I could reference this network in the material onto which I mounted the squares.
This then gave
rise to the title of the work – The Arab Spring Network.
I decided to form
the squares quite a formal arrangement of nine – 3 x 3 on each row which had a
pleasing symmetry. The squares were
then sewn onto the net in rows of six groups – each row took about four hours to measure and mounted
I also tried out
different backgrounds and decided to paint the space with a pale sand colour to
enhance the hanging – it also made the net ‘disappear’ which was quite
interesting.
When the piece
was completed I decided to take it into university to check on its location
within the final year show Unto This Last. Unfortunately I could not have my preferred
space without the lighting system obscuring the top of the piece, however, I painted
the wall in the Project Space with a sand colour – firstly as a strip behind
the piece which seemed to isolate it within the ‘white walls’ of the exhibition
space then the whole wall.
Originally I was
going to paint a floor covering to match the wall but was advised by my tutor
to use sand. The outcome of the first
trial was:
It was then recommended that I paint the end wall
the same colour with the sand spread along its length. This resulted in a much better outcome
although the lighting structure does obscure the view of the whole piece.
Final positioning of The Arab Spring Network
The positioning
within the show is with two other students - Jo
Reynolds whose work is related to feminist mapping in Saudi Arabia and
Katie Hobday’s tiles – the juxtaposition of our three pieces is very
interesting and should give rise to some thoughtful input from the visiting
public.
It was quite
difficult to resolve the issues of evolving a significant response to my own
experience of the Arab Spring but I am happy with the artistic outcome that I
have achieved.
Lesley
Peat
May
2012
(NB Slightly edited from version submitted to BIAD including some photographs omitted)
Bibliography
Books
Coverley,
Merlin. Psychogeography. 2010.
Pocket Essentials Harpenden, Herts, UK
Von
Gwinner, Schnuppe. The History of the
Patchwork Quilt. Origins, Traditions
and Symbols of a Textile Art. 1988. Schiffer Publishing West Chester PA 19380,
USA
Exhibitions
Jaume Plensa at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
(2012)
The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the
British Museum (2012)
Newspaper
Sturges,
Fiona. Arab Spring p38 in I 15 May 2012
Website
The
Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline [viewed 22 March 2012]
