Space to Concept?

When being introduced to a space where a project is to take place, the first thing that happens is that imagination generally takes over and tries to fit the concept into the space even if the project is at its beginnings. Taking in the width, length, height, light in the space, just at first glance, as if taking a glimpse at a text without reading it, just to get the tone that creates the environment and opens the possibilities.

Wimbledon Space.

Our project had an element of performance in it, as it did continue to change and the amount of physical material that would be available for the actual exhibition changed throughout the project. It is still an ongoing performative act including the installation process.

This final solution for the exhibition was not the only possibility and while at first it seemed to be a compromise because many of the other ideas were more complex and time consuming, right now it seems to be the perfect way of us being able to carry out our concept to its optimum as it allows us to carry out another role that we had discussed already but we are finally able to truly take on.

The main idea for our exhibition installation was that it had to reflect the concept but not illustrate it, therefore while one of our most beloved ideas of recreating our working space as an installation in the gallery seemed to have all the elements of allowing our performance to continue throughout the exhibition while also leaving us with many options, it did somewhat just illustrate visually what the material we had accumulated, already does.

We realized that while we wanted to make it quite clear to the spectator what the whole project was about, one element that seemed so important was that we completed our process to the very end. That the concept of the exhibition at the end was the concept of the whole project and not just a representation of what we had done. Simply illustrating or representing the process would simply then be a form of documentation, which would in fact not be true to the idea that we had conceived.

A bundle of documentation, part of the drawing archive.

In the end, the exhibiting of documentation was not what we hoped to achieve, because in fact the documentation that had accumulated in the past months exhibited in a gallery space, would probably be more of an exhibition for ourselves than for anyone else. This leads to question whether the artist actually ever really does have an audience in mind when creating a work of art that will be exhibited?

Which also leads to question what it is in fact that we had done in the past months? Is it a performance? Is it an artistic project? Is it simply an experiment, that was documented for learning purposes or is it all of the above and more?

And more, is it even really necessary to have an answer for these questions and the many more that surround these ideas?

Our project was about value more than anything. It was about the value of time and the value of a person in relation to the value of an object even if this object is a work of art.

We wanted to see if we were actually able to with the input of our work able to raise the value of the drawing that we had set out to purchase. When discussing value, I am not only intending monetary value.

Almost at the complete beginning of the project we began realizing that in fact the drawing had little importance, it had more of a symbolic value, rather than being of actual importance. In the end, what is it that we wanted it to symbolize?

And the roles that we had ‘played’, did they symbolize anything other than the roles that they actually stood for?

Manca Bajec