The intention of the proposed installation

My intention has been to create an environment in my studio space using readymade items and sculptural pieces. To use the items in such a way to create a meaning between those items. Rather than the actual items individually themselves, but the relationship between them. I would hope to create a narrative that would be personal to the viewer’s perspective regarding the relationship between the items in the space. I would also hope to create something personal that in its making would be cathartic in the examining of the chosen subject.

The process and development of the Installation

I started to play about with some different concepts that came up. Ideas about Chrystal methadone drug addiction, after seeing people who were addicted to Chrystal methadone when I was visiting Vancouver. All the addicts had been rounded up and lived in one main city street, which I happened to stumble on to as a tourist. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. A street full of people looking like the night of the living dead (a 1968 horror film about zombies ), it was very disturbing.

I also had ideas about meditation, which I have spent many years doing in many forms. I have come to a time now were though it has been helpful I now see it as suppressing emotions, it may calm in the moment, but the things one are anxious about always seem to come back. I also had this idea about timers and a wall of mirrors with giant eyes. Relating to self-consciousness and the ego.

In the end I started to look at my experience of my Dad and when he was in an old people’s home. How his experience changed as he developed Alzheimer’s and Parkinson disease. Not only the effect of the illnesses, but also the effects of the medication taken for these conditions. His brain was breaking down in a sense with the Alzheimer’s. So his mental time line seemed to disappear regarding the calendar days, months and years, also the twenty-four hour clock, including night and day. So everything had become in the moment. He would be talking about the past, but where he was on the time line could change around a lot. Believing my mother to still be alive (she has passed) or believing his living sister had died.

It also seemed that he had gone back to a childlike mind. A sense of self-consciousness disappeared. After a lifetime of him making sense he would now make things up. The Parkinson’s medication is known to make its consumer have delusional thoughts. This is where ideas of body snatching, being buried in the ground at night and the decapitation of bodies arose due to the medication. Some of his earlier delusions were that the old women in the home were prostituting themselves and having surrogate babies. So it was quite a mixture of fantasies with a dark side.

He also became incontinent and wore pull up pads. The home was very clean. But a couple of times I went into his bathroom and there was faeces spread around the walls, taps and towels. He seemed to be unconscious about all these things.

There seemed to be a point in which he had a change, where there was a letting go in the brain where he fell into some kind of bliss state, possibly as the anxiety connecters in the brain deconstructed. I wouldn’t really know the answer.

I started looking at Kienholz and had this idea of doing a piece showing the scene from the care home. I had this yellow sofa chair at home that I was going to be getting rid of and it reminded me of care home furniture.  I could imagine a Kienholz scene showing a feeling of the environment. Especially as his installation the “Illegal Operation” was so powerful in showing the horror of back street abortions. Also knew I had some mobility type items and furniture still in my Dad’s garage. It wasn’t anything he had actually used but had been given to him. It had gone straight into the garage, unused.

I thought I could use these items to build a Kienholz scene. But the idea of a room scene didn’t really feel like it to me. There seemed some obvious, dark imagery I could use, but I wasn’t quite feeling it.

I placed the items in the studio and just observed each piece of mobility and nursing home furniture. It seemed there was a varying degree of wellness that the person would have to have to use each one. I looked at a Sara Sze installation and was inspired by the ordinary items and how she said it was the relationship between the items that gave them meaning. That really seemed to strike a chord with me.

After placing the items in the space in normal way they looked very uneventful. I started to place the objects hooked around the space in different angles to give it a surreal look. I had felt inspired when I was looking at the three-wheel mobility Zimmer frame. My thoughts went from three wheels to tricycle to trinity, which made me think of the character Trinity from The Matrix (a 1999 Science fiction film).  I liked the visual of the furniture in a disorientated way. This scene seemed to draw you in as the viewer into the surreal world of the Alzheimer’s, Parkinson patient, getting a sense of their altered state.

It started to feel that the image actually wasn’t even about my Dad’s fantasy world, but more that it was my idea of what it was like for him. Was the letting go his or just my idea of it?  It has become more apparent that these art projects are a good way to process and look at things it is otherwise difficult to deal with.

I had originally imagined a clock hanging on the wall with all the numbers in different places to where they should be, to enhance the sense of confusion and timelessness. From the way I had placed the furniture it seemed obvious that the clock should be the centre of the piece. Not only would I jumble the numbers, but also I would have them floating away in a Salvador Dali surreal style.

I had visuals of there being different images of the drugs for these illnesses. At one point I wanted to make a tunnel made out of the drug packet pictures. Also I imagined pills floating around the scene. The tunnel was part of an Alice in Wonderland theme, consuming things and them having an effect on the protagonist.

I purchased a teacup, a milk jug, a sugar bowl and teapot that were the type you would find in a care home.

I also had the association with the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in wonderland. I was going to have the medications coming from a large medicine bottle I had created using antacid tablets and a hot glue gun. A piece that looked like pills floating from the bottle.. I then decided to have them coming out of the sugar bowl. I was aware that they didn’t look as obviously medicine like in the sugar bowl. It then started to make me think about homes that sedate their patients perhaps illegally. I then bought some flu and ibuprofen medicines that looked very pill like due to the capsules and colours which I emptied the contents and glued together to give a trippy feel to the items.

I also included a commode in this installation. I intentionally left the walls of the installation space white so the items would be the focus of the piece and would not get lost got the back ground. It also gave a sense of sanitation.

I wanted to add some element of faeces. I played about with ideas of handprints on the walls. In the end I went for the visual of faeces floating from the toilet. To give a sense that no special attention is given to faeces or bodily function. Also showing the care home patient feels about something that would normally have felt embarrassing for most people. It could also be showing my own acceptance of my father’s condition.

Final Evaluation of the Installation

Overall I am quite happy with how the installation has manifested. There always felt like there was a fine line between it looking like something visually pleasing or interesting, the items relating to each other giving space for a narrative? Or it just looking like a bunch of stuff hanging around the space seemingly unrelated.

As the artist I feel it was fairly successful. I have found the process cathartic. When I first brought the mobility items in there was a feeling of awkwardness or the need to joke about it, to ease fear I suppose. After feeling overwhelmed with the endless possibilities of an open brief in terms of the subject I found the artist research and exploration really helpful in focusing my ideas. Now that the installation is finally finished I feel there could have been further exploration of sound or film, which could be incorporated into the piece to enhance it. I also would have loved to have made some larger pieces replicating the pills etc and placed them near to the front of the piece. Then the perspective of the viewer would have been even more surreal. It has been interesting to get feedback from fellow students.  One student works in a care home and another student’s father has Parkinson’s disease and it is interesting that they can reflect their own experiences in viewing the piece. So overall I am happy with the outcome of this installation.