BECOMING RELATIONAL

9” took the encounter and human relations as its core idea. Dialogue was activated after the immediate situation but remained peripheral. After this piece my practice was to switch focus to creating a relational work that would implement dialogue in the actual situation that I was constructing and place me as the artist directly in a lasting encounter.

 

Here Is Where We Meet would be my first live relational work. Taking its name from the John Berger novel in which the lead story revolves around a son's encounter with his dead mother, the piece endeavoured to create encounter after encounter with live exchange and dialogue with the artist.

 

With reference to Annika Ström's Six Lovely People performed at ICA's fig-2, I was interested in creating a large scale momentary encounter through what was essentially a private view. I wanted to explore the relational nature of meeting people at a private view but instead of using actors and performance, like Ström, I would just use myself in a candid form.

 

In wearing a sweater full of badges and asking people to take these was always going to open up the work to being interpreted as a performance. The reason for wearing the badges as opposed to having them displayed without my involvement was to explore the form of my presence amid an audience and when required almost force interaction with the work. Here Is Where We Meet would be the starting point for Say Hi From Me and everything from then onwards.