Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Middlesex University
Like Love: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3'
This exhibition explored issues of love, romance and care, through working with young mothers (12-15 year olds) and adults with learning difficulties, whilst upturning expectations of socially-engaged practice by also working with artists and artisans.
Investigating how to transform the ephemeral nature of conversation into tangible artworks, this series of artworks came out of a participatory, collaborative and socially-engaged practice, what some call a ‘relational’ (Bourriaud) or ‘dialogic’ (Kester) aesthetic. Talking, listening and accepting the unexpected, are key to this way of working, and Like Love forms a continuation of my process-led practice.
The series ‘Like Love Part One, Two and Three’ required working with specific communities in Bristol, Liverpool, Stoke-on-Trent and London, drawing upon their particular life experiences to speak about love, romance and care.
The use of testimony in art, or the artist as ethnographer is familiar territory. However, during each stage of the project the material produced offered the possibility to shift from the factual to the suggestive. This gave me license to move from drawing to print, and from video to sound, with installations that accumulated over time and culminated in a publication.
The monograph took as its structure Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, which deconstructs the concept of love from the various viewpoints of its many bearers. The monograph also brought together several extracts from behind the scenes conversations and processes to reflect the multiple perspectives of the collaborators.
The output is presented via portfolio, which should be viewed in order to gain a proper understanding of the research.
