Installation in place

We placed the installation on the 13th February and I found that mine went in a lot quicker than I thought, I played around with the placement of the frames and felt happy with this arrangement. I wanted something that filled the space but also added to the sense of monotony so I had some of them in a pile with the stones scattered around which lead onto the frame that were arranged in a line. I felt that this lead nicely into showing the process of them coming from the pile of frames down the line and then into the second room to be ordered.
I had some very good feedback from the visitors that have seen it so far on the opening on 14th February and hopefully this will be recorded along with the visitors that will see it in the week to follow on the comment cards that will be given to every visitor.

Southwell in progress

Started to make my frames working from the photo of the frame that i had seen at Southwell workhouse. I made them from four bits of wood roughly the same length to create a square frame and nailed them together also using glue to make them really strong. I then added chicken wire by using the air tacker making sure that it didn't fire to hard and cut through the chicken wire. To ensure that people wouldn't catch themselves on the chicken I added thin strips of woods to cover the sharp edges of the chicken wire. the frames themselves didn't take too long to make once I had got in the rhythm of making them, I decided to make ten so that I had a few to play around with in the space because i would like to be able to move them around in the room to see how I would like them to be set.

My aim is to set them like the workers had just walked away from them and you get the sense of the presence of the people that would have been there.

Southwell presentation feedback

After presenting my design to the group from south well I feel that I really have a solid link to the workhouse and my installations. From the start I wanted to include the use of frames with the installation but I could not find a developed link to that would connect it to the stones that I would like to include. After talking to the group about the use and the reason for the stones in my piece and trying to connect it to the frames they suggested the frames could be the rock sieves that the inmates would have used to separate the different sizes of stones.

I thought that this was a really good connection to the labour that they would have been amongst so it backs up the idea of monotony and repetition with the use of the sieves. On  a visit to south well after the presentation I found an example of one of the sieves and took some photos for reference so will hopefully try to make mine like these.

design changes

 I started to rethink about the themes that i was looking into in the beginning of this project and I was looking at monotony and repetition. I found that the set up of frames and stones that i had previously didn't best demonstrate this and I started to look at stones in trails and repeated work showing monotony of having to do the same motion over and over. Placing the stones in set out lines shows they seem like they have been placed there intentionally, I want to paint numbers on the stones because this seems like an intentional action. I was still playing about with the frames and how I can fit those in, I think in the section with the regular stones they need to also be regular and regimental rather than random as I have them here. I am still wondering how i should have them in the other section or whether I should have them at all.

white card model

I started to work into the model box to see what the idea may look like within the space that i had chosen. I made some small frames and stacked them together in varying numbers to create a main piece and smaller pieces around the room.

I want there to be quite a few of them because I want there to be a sense of number within the room to demonstrate how packed it may have felt and essentially restrict the visitors movements within the room.

This is the main piece that i created as a focal point within the room, i wanted to keep it as a corner piece to hone in on the feelings of feeling trapped and restricted. I want to have the stones amongst the frames throughtout the room and spilling out from the main structure.

Stones!

http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/

After thinking about my idea some more and looking into Julie Dodd's work I wanted to have something within my idea that showed the monotony of the work rather than the control of the staff which would have been represented by the keys. I found this piece by Gilbert Garcin and felt that this would be more relevant to my idea linking in with the idea of the menial work they had to do. hn we visited the workhouse the last time i was shown some records of the inmates and what pieces of clothing they would have been given etc. in the records i noticed that the inmates werent referred to by name but they were just numbers. I really like to add this aspect into my piece and thought that the stones would lend themselves to this perfectly.


Thinking about the frames i wanted to make them relevant to the workhouse and be something that they may have had or that would be objects from within the workhouse so i thought that they could possibly be similar to the old chalkboard frames that the children would have used within the school.

Julie Dodd

http://juliekdodd.moonfruit.com/building-blocks-of-life/4549771843

When researching my idea I came across this artist that produced an installation in response to finding a lot of keepsakes that she had collected over her life.
She decided instead of holding onto them as keepsakes she turned them into this installation stating that:

'Building Blocks of Life' is a small installation which documents my life. Instead of holding onto keepsakes, drawings, letters, photographs etc., in the traditional manner of photo albums, scrap books etc. I have produced an installation where I've recycled these things, bringing them together to form the 'Building Blocks of Life'. Although unrecognizable they still hold the same memories for me.

i found that i started to think about my idea from the perspective of showing the objects that the inmates may have used or had in the time that they would have been in the workhouse.
 Because objects can show the identity they had within the workhouse even if it was just the clothes they wore it would have been something they may have held onto having been stripped of the identity they had when entering the workhouse.

http://www.willardsuitcases.com/
a project that I looked into was a project that was carried out in a closed asylum where they found suitcases of the people that would have been admitted, they can show the person identity and life through objects inside the space of a suitcase.

start of southwell idea!

After visiting Southwell workhouse a few times I've noticed that i have focused on looking at the identity of people and how i can represent this in my installation. I noticed that i was focusing a lot on the objects within the spaces and also thinking about how the people would have felt within the space having been so controlled even their view on what they looked out on was controlled.
I really like the factor of how they entered the workhouse with nothing
 and I would like to focus on this factor, it interested me to think that they had no possessions not even their own clothes. I started to think about how their lives were constricted within a certain frame of thinking and even what they could see was limited by the windows they looked out of. This got me thinking about how i can represent people within objects, i started to think about frames because to me a persons i identity can be shown within a picture which is often in a frame. I want to play around with the use of frames and what they might represent to different people. Also for me i wanted to involve the use of the control that the inmates had within the building of the workhouse, i was interested in using some of the keys that we were shown on a visit. This to me shows the control that the master and mistress would have over the inmates and the sound that they would create if suspended would recreate the noises that would have echoed around the building itself.

Southwell third visit

 On this visit we were asked to walk around the building taking in any sounds smells and to note anything that we found interesting visually and anything that we might have felt that the building might have been like to be there when it was still a workhouse.
I mostly noted that the building would have been:
-cramped
-dark
-cold
-sounds from other rooms would have been heard round the building
-loud

model box

After talking with Sarah at Southwell workhouse about the thoughts i have had about the project i f that my installation would be good to do as a journey around the workhouse and was thinking i could locate it in a few of the rooms around the workhouse. Possibility of doing a main installation within the green room and then smaller parts of the piece in other locations. I have started to build a model box of the green room becuase i think this would fit will with my idea and possibly the room just before this one, also thought about the entrance of the workhouse and the stairs leading out.

Southwell inspiration

i started to look into installations for inspiration that i could apply to my own, i wanted to focus on use of objects and installations that could be freestanding or something that i could take an aspect from.

i really like the use of frames because when we were at the workhouse it was said that the inmates were stripped of their identity when they came to the workhouse and feel that a frame is quite representative of this. i really like the use of multiple objects or repetition of things.

I also like the possibility of being able to use light within the piece.

Southwell workhouse first visit

Southwell workhouse is a very interesting building, i really like that its rooms have no furniture in because this allows us to have quite open spaces for the installations. i was looking for open spaces that i could have an installation in that  would be fairly free standing because it would be fairly difficult to have anything on the walls or to be able to suspend something. i really like the rooms that are in the older section because you can see the original layers of paint and there is more of a sense of the people within the rooms.