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The Stag and Hound

The ‘Stag and Hound’ (2011) was a large installation/exhibition at Project Space Leeds (PSL). The project included a 4 week in-residence period to produce new site-conditional work at PSL. The project included the ‘Institute of Beasts’ book published by Cornerhouse Publishing (2011). The installation included over 60 artefacts of photographs, sculptures, wall-texts, paintings, flash animations, neon work and sound works. The exhibition references the stag hunting tapestries in the Cluny Museum, Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The production and reception of the installation is likened to encountering a wild animal in a metaphorical dense forest of signs, with the artwork retaining its status as a significant Other. The stag (representing the human condition), is hunted through the forest and killed by a pack of trained dogs; the dogs symbolically represent human savagery (Helmut Nickel, 1984). Each phase of the hunt (and analogous to the installation) is symbolic to the lifespan of a person, resulting in the death of the stag, symbolising one’s inevitable end. The underpinning research references the cultural excesses of late capitalism/postmodernism, perceived as a hazardous and unpredictable ‘forest’, where ‘beings’ function both as subjects who exercise power, and objects upon which power is exercised; referencing subjectification and resistance (Foucault, 1976), and the freedom and identity gained through a process of ambivalent and temporal practices (Deleuze and Guattari 1980). I developed individual research for the Stag and Hound at the following exhibitions: ‘Unspeaking Engagements’ The Art Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (2009); ‘Summoning the Face of the Other’ (2010) New Zealand Film Archive, NZ. ‘Animal Spirits’ (2011) Sugarcube Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden, catalogue 'Sugarpress' ISBN: 978-91-979447. Initial research resulted in a peer reviewed paper presented at Creative Practice / Creative Research Symposium, York St. John University in 2010.