Experimental Use of Space is an artist collective in NE Scotland that arrange an annual, one-day, pop-up group exhibition in unusual spaces around Aberdeenshire. This year, it was at the (currently) semi-derelict steadings at Fetternear Home Farm near Kemnay, on Sunday 7th July. The exhibition theme this time around was “Call Security” – a wonderfully brief brief with loads of potential for inspiration and exploration.
Experimental Use of Space is a fantastic opportunity to – as the name says – experiment. Experiment with practice, with process, with context, with concept, with audience, with any combination of these. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to connect with a group of like-minded artists who are interested in being playful within their creativity. There’s always a diverse array of approaches and outcomes presented, spanning any discipline of the arts that you can imagine.
This year, I took the opportunity of the theme to bring together some ideas that have been fermenting and composting in my head untethered to each other for the last year or two, pulling together inspiration from travels, from local built environment & cultural heritage, from street art (which surrounds us in Aberdeen city), from materials (found, gifted, pre-existing), and from dilapidation, decay and rebirth.
I come from a family where nothing gets thrown out or left behind if it could be useful at some undetermined point in the future; and from a family of inventive fixers. Both of these family traits are heavily ingrained into my life and, therefore, my creative practice. It means that my studio (home, car, shed…) contains a melange of materials and tools. Included among these were a couple of sandwich boards (donated by an enabling studio-mate), cones of Scottish 100% wool (donated by an enabling friend!), and some blown red brick wall fragments collected from the pavement outside a derelict and decaying former textile mill in Aberdeen city centre (wouldn’t you??). All of these have been patiently waiting for the perfect moment to shine, and this was it.
Travels in Nepal & street art
In February 2023, I spent some time working in Patan (Lalitpur) in Kathmandu valley, Nepal. Patan is a city of art and artisans, evident in the architecture, the studios of highly-skilled artisans, and street art murals. The traditional Newar architecture – some of which dates back to the 12th century – showcases ornate wooden carvings mixed with terracotta brickwork. Terracotta (derived from the Latin for cooked/baked earth) is everywhere in Nepal – an abundant iron-red clay that can be fired using processes that date back millennia, formed into durable objects, making vessels that hold people, food, plants and other essentials.
Much like in my home of the Silver City of Aberdeen (where the granite is avoided), the Patan street artists typically avoid painting on the terracotta, going instead for the rendered surfaces that nestle alongside the brick. (Flat surfaces are much easier to paint on, if nothing else!)
So the sighting of stencilled graffiti onto terracotta was noteworthy, as was the message: DIY OR DIE. It’s a minimalist, subversive take on Hillel the Elder’s (paraphrased) 1st BCE quote, “If not you, who? If not now, when?”.
The DIY ethos
DIY (Do-It-Yourself) is typically associated with home improvements by non-professionals, but has also morphed into a sub-culture or an ethic rooted in self-sufficiency, repair and knowledge/skills-sharing – the ability and capacity to complete tasks without paid, professional expertise, and to draw on community networks and the hive mind in order to undertake this and succeed. The statement “DIY or die” suggests that this culture or ethic – and the community of skills and expertise that underpin this – is necessary to survival. The self of community rather than the self of the individual: Do-It-Together. Experimental Use of Space embodies that ethos – a community of artists coming together without pay or payment to create and share work for non-financial benefits.
Stencil graffiti
Stencil graffiti is another form of subculture, originating around the 1960s, that is used to create easily-reproducible images and/or text.
DIY OR DIE takes as a starting point the idea of the paper stencil translated into a woven stencil – text as textile. Elements of the paper stencil (the “bridges” that stop the centre of letters from dropping out) were retained and enhanced, despite being unnecessary due to the nature of weaving and the method (warp wrapping) used to create the letters in the fabric on the loom – a reference back to the printed origins. The letters were created by following a paper stencil placed beneath the growing fabric as it was being woven. The fabric stencil was woven using Scottish 100% wool from a local spinning mill, in a colour similar to terracotta. Once off the loom, the fabric was finished by washing and blocking – a process that removes spinning oil from the yarn, allowing the wool to swell and the fabric to shrink as the intersecting weft and warp threads relax against each other and find their neutral energetic state.
Text, textile and texture
But what to stencil on? A wall was the obvious answer, and the terracotta brick wall of a decaying, empty former textile mill in the centre of my home city seemed the natural place to situate commentary about the need for DIY, community-based action. But first, I needed to know whether the textile stencil functioned as intended – it may be illegible, it’s meaning lost in failed function or insufficient spray can control skills… Luckily, I was able to seek some advice on the latter from friends with the requisite skills (DIY ethos in action). And spray tests on cardboard, wood and brick with a test fabric stencil – DYE (of course!) – worked beautifully, rendering the detail of both text and textile.
While I remain keen to test this out “in real life”, the work also needed to be transportable to the site of the exhibition. I had previously collected some red brick fragments from the pavement outside Broadford Works, blown out through weathering and lack of maintenance. Using some 3mm plyboard I had in the studio, which perfectly fitted into the grooves of a wooden sandwich board I had been given, I was able to recreate a fake terracotta brick wall, including an element of the decay of missing bricks and the imprints they left behind.
Things are not what they seem
And so to combining text and textiles with texture… The moment of truth, spraying onto the wall-not-wall through stencil-perhaps-stencil to create graffiti-not-graffiti. And all contained within a sandwich board, a device for attracting attention and advertising, through written and spoken words.
The finished piece was displayed outside a decaying and dilapidated farm steading, held within a space marked by retaining walls of granite that themselves show signs of past maintenance and ongoing decay while still retaining function.
Protest
As is the way of Experimental Use of Space, the work also became an unintended prop in a performance by Mothers of Invention, “Protest”, a dance where text-based placards and textile wrapping were also a feature that called to the audience to take up space and join the collective fight for community rights. It was a perfect moment!
So… What’s the point of it all? In a world where community property is managed on our behalf through delegated authority, where lines drawn on maps delineate national concerns, and where protest is being curtailed in the name of national security, how do we assert a different way of being and of relating to each other and to the world around us? What of our cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) and built and natural environment do we value and maintain? Who has the authority to act in this regard? How do we tell the historical and contemporary stories of activities and spaces, and enable ongoing connections with them? What are the rituals that hold these stories? Whose security do we cherish? How do we nourish and nurture life among decay and dereliction…? And if not you, who? If not now, when?
Post published 09-JUL-2024