November 4th 2020
UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE Zoom Thinking through Making
Hardy gave us a tour of her studio, pulling out models of exhibitions and gave a talk about her practice and described in some detail her sound work.
I found it really fascinating that until fairly recently Hardy’s work existed only as a photographic print and that the spaces she had created were in themselves Hinterlands, no go, nowhere man’s lands that didn’t exist except for her own experience. During lockdown this is how I had experienced my installation works and this had been both liberating and debilitating at the same time. Spaces and experiences made that would not be shared.
When making work Hardy described the making as answering the question “What do I want the work to do? Think about physically how does the work sit and how do people meet the work and be with it?” She has worked around journeys, Solstice events and natural rhythms of the world and a visceral presence. Hardy described using found material, both object and sound living or sentient entity. Hardy said she found it has its own routine or rhythm to channel something beyond itself (the found material).
Hardy talked about art she liked but didn’t understand why as American minimilism the edge of the work literally described the work. She talked about visiting Marfa in Texas which is widely known as the resting place for the work of Donald Judd. She talked about her sudden understanding her own practice experience looking at minimalism. What I found fascinating about Hardy’s experience of the minimalist forms helping her understand her own work is that largely this has been my experience too. Looking at the works of in particular Richard Serra and Eva Hesse has helped me understand what object, surface, edge and form are within space. This then has helped me understand that within minimalism and post-minimalism almost any surface is in fact an edge or a thing that can be described as an edge.
The takeaways I got from this talk were;
Installation can exist without a physicality. That the photograph of the installation can be the work of art. The installation cannot exist forever and once it it taken down, the artefacts of it are the work.
Do what you can do with the situation you are in. Use what you have and make it into the work. If it is a cardboard proposal, then that is the work.
Think about exhibition as a medium. Plan your work to be in a space, again if the cardboard proposal can be useful to plan but also to show exhibition can be made.
Make an environment that could have a transformative experience for people. This for my practice is the most important point I got from Hardy’s advice. This will help me plan my graduate show and help me think about the studio space.
The use of soundscape within the work is possible and viable. I have been problem solving with the use of my own collection of soundscapes for some time. Hearing Hardy talk about it has eased my mind that it is possible. Reflecting on this moving forward I would like to invest in some better microphones for this purpose.
Tina Culverhouse 