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On the Road to Bandung: Space to consider -
Installation in the St Patrick's Centre, Downpatrick I used the invitation to have a solo exhibition in the St Patrick's Centre as an opportunity to bring together as many of the documents as I could from my ongoing project 'On the Road to Bandung', so that I could share these with an audience and also think about them myself. I consider this installation part of the on going work 'On the road to Bandung'. for more details of this work click here Although the exhibition space was big, it was impossible to bring all the documents so far accumulated as part of this work together in a way that was satisfactory. I therefore had to select very carefully which documents to compose the installation of. In the end I settled on the following: 1. The original map of the world which I drew the line from my house to Bandung on. I normally take this map with me if I am making a performance or installation and I occasionally let people modify it by adding to it 2. My trundle wheel, which I have been using to measure the distance between my house and Bandung as I walk. 3. Another map of the world which is an exact copy of the original one I marked the line on. to this map I attached a series of photographs of members of IAPAO. 4. 16 significant emails received from different people while I have been walking 5. All 17 Euro's of sponsorship money I have so far been given for my walk. These were mounted on individual rectangular pieces of card with the names of the individuals who donated them to me attached. among this collection of money was also a Dollar bill signed by Denis Romanovski and five euros donated by Myriam Laplante. 6. A series of photographs of proposed statues of me in Bandung along with draft of a letter to Bandung city council. 7. A number of other significant photographs taken as I have been walking. 8. A very clear over view of the 'On the road to Bandung' project presented both on the wall and as a leaflet accompanying the exhibition. Theft of the Trundle Wheel from the Exhibition!! One of the best things that happened during the month which the installation was up, was that someone stole the trundle wheel. It went missing for about a month. At the time I had to pretend to be very worried, if only because the gallery were, but I actually thought it was quite good that someone had stolen it. I have to admit I didn't like the idea of not getting it back because I had had it for so long and used it so many times. but in another way I think if I had been in the installation with all the different images and stories of my walking, I'd probably wanted to take it for a walk my self. The wheel being stolen also gave me a great excuse to start talking to different curators, art collectors and people who deal with the performance art within museum contexts as the St Patrick's centre gallery had asked me to place a value on the Trundle wheel. I found this process very interesting. Opinions varied from about £200 to £4000. Some people rather wisely didn't place a value on it but told me the process of evaluation I should go through to come up with it economic worth. One of my favourites, from a source that must remain nameless, was to calculate how long I had spent walking with the wheel and then multiply this by the hourly rate I consider my time to be worth. once I have this sum, I have to work out how much the whole body of the Bandung project is worth. to do this I I have to consider the previous value of other pieces of work I have sold. I then need to add value to the Trundle Wheel because it is the most significant object in the whole collection of items associated with the work because it legitimates all the other object the materials associated with the project. the final thing to consider in this evaluation system is the potential future value of the work, i.e. I am expected to shoot to some kind of cult artistic significance later on in life and will 'On the road to Bandung' have significance as a seminal project in my body of work. What an eye opener! Return to the main 'On the Road to Bandung' Page here Return to the SPART home page here |
