Jul 19

Jul 19 Butting Heads, 2023

2023, Sculpture, Performance

This project sets out to make a three pier clay sculpture that imagines our relationship as three individuals and the affect of those relationships on the integrity of the whole.

Questions of how we live together and relate to each other have become significant in this time of environmental and social change. And working as a collective not only gives us a social framework through which to consider these issues but also shapes the artwork that follows.

Inspired by the enduring quality of the aqueduct and the stone arches we came across whilst on residency in the small town of Spoleto, Italy, we took the architectural form as a useful symbol for thinking about the relationship between the individual and the wider community, and more specifically about the dynamic of our own collective.

Butting Heads at Bex&Arts 2023 (installation shot by Gabriel Monnet)

“During the production of the heads we realised that it was extremely unlikely the sculpture would remain standing once the formwork was removed. Knowing this we made the decision to embrace the collapse and to burn down the formwork. Setting the structure alight as a performance (which the collapse had been programmed as) felt like a dynamic option, with minimal interruption from ourselves.”

Photograph of Ditch and Rampart, Individually scratched, 4th August 2015.

“The burning and capitulation of the sculpture was very moving and although we had anticipated feeling dissappointed or sad, the experience was unexpectedly profound. It felt a little like mourning.”

Jul 19 Butting Heads, 2023

May 20 Bodygrams, 2022-