Conversation in Two Parts approaches reenactment as a tool for emotional processing. Clay busts of family members, animation software and crudely constructed sets are used to revisit situations, offering alternative and imagined outcomes that consolidate experiences of shame with methods for self-empowerment.
The work is motivated by a desire for self-improvement and a need to regain a sense of agency. Here, reenactment allows for a heightened sense of control and stability. By inserting various representations of myself into texts written by family members and close friends, Conversation in Two Parts aims to problematise the role of internal and external authoritative voices in the process of subjectification.
Understanding shame as an inwards looking and isolating experience, part of this project has been informed by a desire to use skill-sharing as a means for self-empowerment. In the process of making this video installation I have learnt how to produce basic animation and sound artworks. This approach echoes earlier bodies of work in which video tutorials and DIY construction have acted as a means for recovering agency in social life.
As such, the process of constructing the work, both in its hand-crafted surfaces, and in its proliferation across screens, is as important as the exhibited outcome. Conversation in Two Parts speaks through process and form, and the language of the ‘conversation’ remains opaque to the observer, disconnected from the contexts that inspired it. This is a conversation that extends through making, experimentation and reflection, rather than verbal articulation.
This work was supported and shown at Firstdraft.
OPENING: 9 May 2018, 6pm
