Beyond the self-contained

To take the work out of the showcase and, as in the case of Rail as vessel (2012) for instance, to mount it to a wall, immediately changes its objecthood status, as this raises some ambiguity about whether the work is on display or is part of the gallery space. This shift also affects the perceived scale and proportions of the space and has an impact on the potential use and role of object and space. Just as the object becomes part of the gallery space, equally the wall becomes part of the exhibition, rather than serving as passive backdrop. Through this research, I wanted to investigate whether the interaction between objects and space could be extended through observation of opportunities found in installation art and

architecture, which inherently afford greater interaction between objects and space, and where the installation and object are usually more synergistic.

I previously discussed my interest in moving from the pure gallery space to working with ‘props’ in the gallery in order to evoke domes- tic fragments for fixing and mounting of the rail works. From this, I have made works which relinquish the gallery altogether and move into actual domestic settings.

In contrast to the pure gallery space, a domestic space is more dynamic and layered with meaning. Its possible meanings are the subject of much research and debate, which is beyond the scope of this project. For my purposes, domestic space refers to the ‘home’ in a contemporary, Western sense of home – a dwelling place. It is a functional space, but also of emotional, psychological and symbolic importance to its inhabitants. It is a place in which to live and which is inhabited and ‘owned’, if not literally then emotionally or psycho- logically; Corner rail, Figure 14 (2009).

For an understanding of what I mean by domestic space, I turn to Bachelard in setting out a phenomenological approach to space.84 Bachelard’s concept of “lived space” makes a significant contri- bution to an understanding of the connections between emotion and space, providing a relational alternative to the common un- derstanding of space as ‘Euclidean’, as an empty space, distanced from the world and self by the desire to ‘know’ it as an separate entity or object.

In contrast, ‘lived’ or inhabited space is known through one’s partic- ipation or inhabitation of it. It can also be a place where memories are formed, and where fundamental images and attitudes to the larger world are embedded or framed for its inhabitants.

In his novel, 12 Edmonstone Street, author David Malouf talks about the resonance objects in the domestic setting can have:

crawling around room by room we discover laws that we will apply later to the world at large … Each house has its own topog- raphy, its own lore: negotiable borders, spaces open or closed, the salient features – not capes and bays in this case, but the Side Door, the Brass Jardiniere – whose names make up a daily litany. A complex history comes down to us … Its spirit resides in ordinary objects that become, beyond the fact of presence and usefulness, the characters in a private language – characters too in the story we are living … The house is a field of dense affinities, laid down, each one, with an almost physical power, in the life we share with all that, in being ‘familiar’ has become essential to us, inseparable from what we are.85

In considering how craft objects create or affect space, this research is also about a broader idea of habitation, involving the viewer’s be- ing within a space as a sentient inhabitant. Here, their relationship

to the object and their awareness of their own scale and perceptions can be affected by the object within the space. In this sense, the research explores the idea that a craft object can also evoke notions of home through its suggested or actual usefulness and its aesthetic connection or reference to domestic objects.

In The architecture of happiness, Alain de Botton poetically de- scribes our connection to space and specifically to the idea of ‘home’ as a ‘place’ that can be felt or evoked outside the more traditional sense of ‘home’:

In turn, those places whose outlook matches and legitimates our own, we tend to honour with the term ‘home’. Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is sim- ply to recognize its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner. Our love of home is in turn an acknowledgement of the degree to which our identity is not self-determined. We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for our vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.86

The series Rail and vessel (2011, 2012) completed through this research and presented in a range of local physical environments draws on the more evocative, less literal idea of home that is sug- gested by de Botton above. Both these works and the work included in Corner rail, Figure 13 (2009) explore how the object’s specific relationship to a given site can give rise to particular modes of en- counter that mark a moment and create a place. In the case of Corner rail (2009), located in literal domestic settings, the aim is not to didactically influence the inhabitant’s views, but to investigate the potential for richness in the domestic context through engagement with resonant objects. Through considering relationships of the works to the space of ‘home’, the aim is for the practice to ‘re-route’ fine craft objects as framing elements experienced in human daily life. This places them somewhere between well-designed objects that people enjoy and use in daily life, and finely crafted autono- mous objects generally seen in exhibition.

Considering possible ritual tasks or actions associated with home – such as ‘coming home’ – there can be a suggestion of sequence and journey that provides an opportunity for the object to ‘partici- pate’ in the associated rituals, for instance the dropping of keys and phone, the hanging of umbrella and hat and so on. This can activate or reflect a physical journey as well as potentially evoking significant emotional or spiritual experiences and contributing to resonant, durable moments that become associated with the object. I discuss this further in Chapter 6, Experience triggers.

4.3 Interior/exterior