Introduction // Background // Theory and Context // Methods // Discussion i. Bodies and Buildings // The Pleating Papers // Discussion ii. Spaces and Voices // Other Stories // Conclusion // References and Image List
The Biologist1
‘I’d like to tell you a story,’ he says, ‘but I have to think how I can keep it short.’
‘That’s ok, I’m here all day,’ I reply.
‘No, but this is your day, not mine.’
His wife smiles and nods, maybe even rolls her eyes a little.
‘So…it’s like this,’ he begins. He hesitates. ‘No…ok…so I used to be a biologist. Years ago, when we first started 3D modelling, and I was studying protein strands. I had a piece of wire, a computer scanner and a bottle of nail varnish. I took the wire, I scanned it, I lacquered a section, bent it, then scanned it again, and so on, bending and lacquering and scanning until I had discovered the form of the protein strand. All beginning with this straight piece of wire, and searching, finding form. This is what you’re doing too. You begin with flatness, you search until it tells you its form.’
The Mother2
‘It’s kind of happy and sad at the same time,’ she says, ‘like something is all over, or is waiting to begin. Let me guess what the title is...don’t tell me...After the Ball?’
I look at her in disbelief, laughing as I say, ‘What?! It’s called After the Dance!’ We both giggle. She knows me best, after all.
‘This one is lovely too,’ she says, moving on. ‘Like two beetles on a pond. The one with the hair puzzles me, though.’
‘Me too,’ I agree.
‘But I think these are your best pieces yet, well considered and better made. I absolutely love them! I’m very proud of you!’
I take her arm in mine and squeeze it.
‘Now, I think we should get you some flowers,’ she says. ‘Is that a Swedish thing?’
Other
Stories
For most of the duration of an exhibition, my sculptures are left to speak amongst themselves and to visitors. These are some of the conversations I have had with people, about conversations they had with my work ...
The Children3
The children are the most interesting ones to watch, the way they engage with the work on their own level, quite literally sometimes, as they are closer to the floor. Yet the big things must look even bigger to them, the high ones even higher. I wonder what it feels like to see, to move, to touch, at two or three or four. For they are not afraid to reach out and feel things, to pull and prod and push and poke. And their spatial awareness is no better than mine as they walk into things and brush up close. But grown-ups do that too, are even rougher sometimes.
‘What do you see?’, their parents ask them, and I wonder if they see any more than hear and smell and feel, or if we are just trained to value one sense over another. And I feel nervous, worry that their curiosity will hurt them if something falls. But I try to be as brave as they are and I concentrate on listening.
‘It’s a fish,’ one says.
‘Look mummy! Why is there hair on the floor?’ another quite rightly enquires.
‘I’m in the turtle!’ another exclaims in delight.
And I think to myself that their thoughts are perhaps the truest of all.
The Awkward One4
‘Har du en fråga?’ I ask.
‘Inte verkligen,’ he replies.
I feel awkward, take a step back.
‘Men du kan berätta mig något,’ he says, and I suddenly don’t know what to say.
So we both stand there for a moment, then I take a breath and start to tell him about roofing and flat sheets and stories. He looks unimpressed. I panic. I keep talking, and now the words won’t stop. Skin and shelter. Violence. Protection. Then his eyes light up. I’ve hit something.
‘Det är som något jättegammalt. Typ som Game of Thrones,’ he says.
Then painful silence again. But it’s enough.
The Sci-Fi Writer5
‘I love how you’re taking space,’ he says. ‘Or at least, how your work is. It’s really taking over, makes you think of the building in a different way. You’ve no idea how much of it there is back there. It’s kinda creepy. But you know I like that. Like a big unidentified object just sitting there ominously, or a spaceship lost in orbit. It feels more alive than last time, more voluminous. Like it has eaten part of the building and is slowly gaining strength, ready to dominate and crawl out of hibernation.’
The Painter6
‘This one is like a mix between 1920s brothel and industrial armour. It’s kinda steampunk. I like it. But...I don’t know how critical I’m allowed to be...? It seems kinda flat. It’s more like plastic or fabric.’
He moves on. ‘This one, though, I love the richness of the surface, how worked it is, with the colours and tones. It feels more alive.’
A step towards the middle. ‘It’s like a horse sat on its own baby. Or a creature is digesting a small child.’
He looks up. ‘And that one is like black mould, oozing, growing, spilling out.’
He turns to the mirror, checks his hair, raises an eyebrow at himself in approval. ‘But this one is so beautiful. Like pearl or turtle shell, completing space, hiding something precious inside.’
The Couples Therapist7
He stands by the chair, regards its S-shaped curve and velvet seat, the armoured cocoons which envelop and seal its seating space.
‘I should have this in my treatment room,’ he says. ‘They often sit like this, facing away from one another, heading in opposite directions, with different goals and aspirations. They sit close, but do not touch. There’s a barrier between them somehow. They talk, but their voices are lost, they can’t communicate.’
He chuckles, shakes his head, moves over to the mirror. ‘I only saw the outside. I couldn’t see the inside at all. But now that’s all I see, and I can’t see myself.’
A step back. ‘This one didn’t open his parachute. But who was underneath?’
‘That one frightens me,’ I reply. ‘It’s kind of dark, and I don’t know where it came from.’
‘We all have that darkness inside our brains,’ he says with a knowing smile. ‘It has to come out somehow.’
And with that, he wanders off.
Half an hour later: ‘You should be a family therapist,’ he says. ‘They all relate to one another, close but distant. They communicate, but shout their own stories.’
He looks at his daughter, looks at me. ‘It’s the same thing, really. They are just like us.’
The Old Handyman8
He asks me what they are made of.
‘Zink,’ I reply.
‘Svenskt eller från Tyskland?’
‘German Rheinzink. The kind they use on buildings.’
‘Ja, precis. Och den här är takpapp, eller…?’
‘Exakt.’
We continue this way for almost 30 minutes, he in Swedish, me in fits and starts. We talk about materials, how they work and what they mean, and he says how nice it is to see them used this way. He gets up close, strokes the stitches, runs a worn fingertip along the razor-sharp edge of steel.
We tease out stories until I run out of words.
He goes back and looks again, smiling with his eyes. I stand back and look at him looking.
And I smile.