I cannot overstate how important my understanding of the order and narrative has been to the process of building my exhibition. The feeling developed from insights gained during my artist’s residency in July and through subsequent discussions with my tutor that my narrative was unclear. I used my growing awareness about this narrative to test my project, which helped me to recognise where there might be gaps in my sequence and where several works conveyed the same message. I tested my growing appreciation of the flow needed to present my work successfully with feedback sessions with my peers and with my tutor.
I recognise that as I write about my narrative, the changes to my visual works and, later, to the titles attached to these works and to the introductory text, some of these changes have been subtle, especially as I near the end of my degree. Some of the works I have made have found their place in my sequence and need little manipulation, while some pieces felt wrong for different reasons, whether this was due to duplication of the message, the position within my sequence, whether the text describing the work needed tweaked and occasionally some creative work needed to be redone or pictures reshot. I will show below a final iteration of my exhibition but will include earlier choices and highlight why I changed my mind.
The initial work to introduce my project shows a hospital corridor with the white light of a doorway reflected and amplified in the floor at the far end of the corridor. I was fairly sure that this piece should be the first work in my sequence, and even the title did not change as my course approached the end. This gave my project a good foundation for choices to come. This work is titled “Hospital time runs very slowly”.
My second artwork shows a view from Rebecca’s hospital room, looking over the hospital buildings towards the Edinburgh skyline. Anyone familiar with Edinburgh will recognise this view, and anyone not familiar with the city should recognise that I show a typical hospital block. Early versions of this picture had a child placed on the roof of the building, echoing my idea in a later image featuring a cliff. However, I recognised that the height or shape of the building was not the important part of this element in my sequence, but instead, the view tied with my title, “My view”. This title has changed a few times as I slowly came to appreciate how these words, if more refined, helped the concept behind the image. Earlier titles included “View from my daughter’s hospital room” Later on, I rationalised how I referred to my daughter after feedback pointed out that sometimes I called her Rebecca and sometimes my daughter.
My third image acts as a pair with image two. I added this to my sequence as I started to question my narrative, trying to identify gaps. Initially, my tutor questioned why I had included this image as I wasn’t clear about what I was showing. At that time, my image was titled “Bedside Table” which was too descriptive and didn’t hint at any of the real story behind this work. The counterpoint between these two images is that one looks outward from the hospital towards the horizon from a standing position, while this image is about Rebecca’s perspective, confined to her bed for a huge amount of time because of the pain of her cancer. Much later, I changed the title of this work to “Rebecca’s View”
The fourth artwork is a new work I shot for this project late into the process of making sense of my narrative. This work shows a memory box Rebecca filled with objects precious to her when she knew she was dying. The box is under the bed in the spare room, tucked away out of sight. I have never opened her memory box. This work was initially titled “Memory Box” and came later on in my sequence. I experimented with this image in colour before deciding black and white best suited my purpose. A later piece of feedback told me that this black and white image was the first in my sequence when Rebecca was dea and was the first without colour. I hadn’t considered this so a valuable insight. Before this image, I was experimenting with an image of a get-well-soon card and a straight image showing the warning light outside the room where Rebecca received radiotherapy. Feedback told me that the warning sign was too descriptive and simple without leaving any room for my audience to make their own choices. I never pursued the work with the get-well-soon card as it felt too contrived to me and my project turned to a very harsh level of editing and stripping out all which was unnecessary or didn’t work perfectly in my sequence. The memory box work became “I Have Never Taken the Lid Off Rebecca’s Memory Box”
Rejected images at this stage of my narrative.
As I write this description, it is clear to me that I was unclear on how to close my project. I have made many changes to this part of my sequence, including my images and the text. There are works that I included for a long time, but I couldn’t find a compelling reason to fit these into my narrative and eventually rejected them. Such works include my selection of found album images and a memorial locket, which I show below:
Artwork five was my image of a cliff. At the top of the cliff, I placed a small child. I took a stock picture of a cliff and shaped and coloured it on my computer before eventually, happy with my work, going on to research similar sites so I could take such a shot myself and avoid any complications of using someone else’s work in my exhibition. This was originally a diptych, but I responded to feedback and asked myself if I could simplify this work without impacting the story it tells. It shows the mixture of discomfort expressed through fear of heights yet, at the same time, shows a happy child with arms spread as if welcoming this abyss and the liminal space at the border of life and death. My original title for this work was “The Abyss” which I changed to “The Precipice”. I have also taken the child out of my current shot as the cliff would seem to tell the story both with or without the child.
I note that in this example, the cliff edge was fenced off and it wouldn’t have been safe to attempt to cross the fence and try to descend the cliff so as to change my perspective. For this reason I used AI within Photoshop to create a horizon..
[Artwork 6]
As my work progressed, a natural divide developed between straight pictures, such as a hospital corridor or the memory box, and more conceptual pieces. Artwork six is my final ‘straight’ piece, although I had a further four pieces which were originally part of my sequence which I later removed. The woollen image came from a collaboration. The wool represents gifts given to newborn babies. I later realised that, while I liked this image, there was no fit with my narrative. Similarly, my image exploring memory showing a park bench. The other two photographs imagine a view from the banks of the River Styx as I explored what it might look like gazing into the liminal space. I finally rejected these as my image of the cliff replicated the message in these two works.
My sixth piece for my exhibition is my video work of falling ash. Rebecca’s ashes were scattered from a bridge where she had made her only bungee jump. Her doctors refused to allow her permission to do another jump when she was ill. The scattering of her ashes was a symbol of Rebecca’s last bungee jump. I shot this several times, sometimes using stones collected from the river under the bridge and then simplifying this work. I changed the rate at which the video sequence played, and after feedback that the ash looked like icing sugar, I darkened this work. This work will play on a loop in my exhibition. I have questioned whether to show work on a monitor or to project it on the wall. My preferred choice is a projection, placing the projector where my audience can get between the projector and the screen, and so become part of my artwork. This work is called “Scatter”.
Although I had experimented with this piece, it wasn’t originally part of my major project. Initially, I didn’t think a video piece would work in my chosen gallery. This only came into scope when I showed it to others and asked them for feedback, which forced me to think again about this piece. When I thought more about this work, I realized that obstacles and challenges in the gallery space were no reason to exclude this work.
I show a link to the final video below:
My seventh piece has found a place in my exhibition for a long time, although originally, this didn’t have the block of red, which came from me using my home computer with a graphics card that is out of support for current versions of Photoshop. When editing, sometimes the graphics card would throw out glitches over which I had no control. This element of losing control felt like death itself, which, for most, is a sudden thing. This explains the title of this work, “The Abruptness of Death” The work started out as a found image bought on an online auction site. I edited this work, trying to create the sense of something uncomfortable and otherworldly before the accident with the graphics card added to this piece.
My next image is another, which uses a photograph I purchased online where the history and story of the child have been lost. I chose this picture as the child looks back over their shoulder at us as if asking a question. I cut the child from the original background and placed it on a black background, then added a sense of supernatural light above the child’s head. This idea was inspired by work done by artist Ken Currie.
This child has been part of my sequence, then removed, then added in again in a different form for quite some time. I saw something in the child I wanted to use but didn’t know how. When I saw how my paired images of Rebecca’s view from her bed and my view from the window worked, it occurred to me that there could be another image answering the child’s unspoken question. I titled this work “Are You Coming?”
This image, titled “Soon,” helped me make sense of the child in my previous work. I shot it at a gig where I was interested in the light playing over the audience. I took this photograph as the crowd looked the same way towards the stage as if they all had but one mind. I then simplified the light on the stage to make it similar to the light I used above the child’s head in my previous work.
Artwork 10
My final work is an installation of a see-saw. This is made from a length of scaffold board and an old hinge, which I sourced and had sent to me. I have passed this to the local blacksmith to do some remedial work and make it more steady for a gallery setting, as I didn’t want it falling on anyone. The base for this piece weighs in excess of 37kg. I originally titled this work “Letting Go”, and while I like this title, my tutor introduced a different thought in that I might consider leaving this piece untitled as a suitable way to end my project, my exhibition and my studies at the OCA.
A composite image of the base and the scaffold board is shown below:
