From My Home To Yours
2020
A project devised during a Curatorial Residency with CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Plymouth).
As Curator in Residence with CAMP, I was able to undergo a period of research and development; to research how an “exhibition” via post could open up new opportunities to provide access and engagement to artworks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After suffering with digital overload when the UK went into lockdown, I was hoping of finding a way to engage with artworks in a non-digital format, prioritising physical connections.
As part of my research I looked into mail art and its emergence from the 1960s through to today, and how this developed into a worldwide practice. Mail art relies on the postal service to complete the transaction between sender and recipient. This often becomes a back and forth process between a network of recipients, offering the opportunity for continuous re- interpretation. It also falls outside of the commercial art market, and offers the chance for anyone with access to a post box and a few materials to participate.
I like the transaction that takes place, and the potential for a network to be built between participants and the possibility of endless compression of ideas into a ‘post-able’ format whilst working within the constraints of what can be physically posted.
My initial idea was to create a publication of works that could be posted, however I soon realised that I wanted something more versatile, with more scope to become an art object in itself that could be interacted with as well as displayed.
I have found a lot of inspiration in flat pack furniture design and distribution, specifically Patterncraft furniture; a range of paper patterns that enabled working class Australians to build their own furniture following post-war shortages of materials and labour to create affordable modern furniture. Designed by Frederick Ward after World War II, Patterncraft existed as a number of paper patterns available by mail order. Each item of furniture could be built with basic skills using a small number of tools and common materials. This system helped Australians furnish their homes with objects made by themselves; each one personal to the maker. With these things in mind I hoped to build the project around these concepts; to create a framework for artworks to be created that can be easily distributed to people’s homes.
‘From my Home to Yours’ was an event that worked to test out the flat pack aspect of a brief that I had devised during the residency. In this instance the brief was to translate personal objects into 2D plans and drawings, as a way of sharing personal spaces and objects with one another, which we are unable to do in the usual way right now. The drawings created during the workshop have been collated into a publication that will be posted to all participants. The drawings will act as 2D patterns that can be used to make 3D constructions of the original objects or to inspire other artworks influenced by each other’s domestic spaces.
Many thanks to CAMP, Hannah Rose and Lucy Stella Rollins for their support.
I now deliver From My Home To Yours as a workshop to groups, please get in touch if you are interested in this.
View the From My Home To Yours gallery here
Photos Courtesy of Katie Mundy