Venetia Allan
Attempt to make an object which encapsulates home. Portable so it can be taken with me. A connection to the living land. To embody a place in small form. An object to bring joy and connection.
How / Where/ when: made from the chalk itself. Lit like the downs themselves. A view as if from a hill I often walk on.
For who: Me. Anyone displaced. Anyone who feels the power from the chalk – who can feel the energy that made them passing up through their feet.
To me the light is the fundamental source of nearly all life – it is the power of all of us. Even chalk only exists due to the sun…
Inspiration for The Downs project:
NSOTA Week 6 Oct 28th: Quilting with Isabell Macneill.
Making something secure and warm with meaningful and reused objects. This is the kind of art that seems the most apt in the Anthropocene. The high art world seems a mad popularity contest to me.
Craft as resilience – even REST as resistance – what about JOY as resistance? Making meaning through creation – choosing not to take part in processes that harm… eg ministry of naps
Week 7 Nov 4th Forest Thinking Katie Holten:
Art does not need ‘stuff’ to make it. Katie works with plants! Perhaps my biosphere project is not what I should be doing – despite reusing as much as I could I have bought a lot of stuff to make it – art does not need that. What can I make from what I already have.
A ‘turning away’ from extractive consumption - How to combine light and a less extractive practice?
Week 9 Nov 25th Sanctuary: Marina Warner:
How to embody place in small form eg god or souvenir? Like something of home which can be taken by refugees? Marina says a relic can hold the magic even if it’s a copy. How do we give meaning to our surroundings? What is important to me about where I am from?
Discussions with my supervisor Guy de Lancey led me to think about the downs…
Week 13 Jan 13th Animism, Activism and the Rights of Nature movement Robert macfarlane:
We are complex earth systems - mitochondria, microbiome, virome, holobionts - kindom instead of kingdom
The inspiration for the downs sculptures. Found chalk from the now urban outskirts of the downs.
Building, inner and outer view.
Audience View:
Stills from 24 hour cycle: dawn, midday, night .
Reflection:
Hard to represent this in photo or video as this sculpture evolves over time and perspective is crucial – you need to meet it.
The self-drying clay was flocked as it seemed to give a good texture and colour BUT the process can cause ‘flock workers lung’ and … micro plastic!! Should have checked this BEFORE I made it…
Improvements:
Solar powered… light moving inside like the sun, light in sync with the real place – no plastic!!!
How else can the downs be encapsulated?
“However, everybody knows you can't raise a witch on chalk; it's too soft. I suppose it's just as well that everybody knows that what everybody knows is wrong.”
Terry Pratchett
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