Artist Statement

 

The process of participation involves talking, recording information of importance, such as the participants views regarding the community in which they live. Organising multiple get-togethers where individuals can be creative whilst expressing their feelings in a controlled environment. This process can be arduous and does not instantly bear fruit, but the collaboration eventually results in some degree of collective memory inspired artistic experience. The overall goal is to empower members of the general public to successfully express positive and negative emotion, surrounding poignant topics regarding the local community into a collaborative artistic endeavour.

Using sculpture as her medium the artist is able to work freely. By selecting and manipulating solid materials that emulate a ghostly reminder of industrialisation, combined with strong, poignant imagery of devastation, she intends to depict an isolated tragic event that rocked her own community. In 1967, at her local train station, there was a collision, resulting in the loss of 9 souls and injuring of 16 individuals. As such, the artist utilises light as a medium to ignite fear, confusion and to unnerve the viewer, transmitting an overtly ambiguous directive regarding the piece’s eventual intention.

Her community engaged project, ‘Train of thought’ allows for communities to feel like they have a platform for promoting respective views & concerns, solidifying the community, with each member contributing a part of the work, either by physically creative application or dialogue. The role of the artist in this series is to represent the people’s impressions about forgotten components of the local community. The artist’s representation of the data gathered leaves space for its viewers to translate the information by dissecting the fragmentation of the combination of sculpture and 2D imagery.