Balloon
Installation has an interesting story behind its appearance. Shortly
after dismantling Red Room/Not A Red Room/The Red there was a
participatory event held in Herrick Gallery by Maria Teresa Gavazzi.
On the 14-th of February, a gallery was full of people and balloons
hugging each other. Each of us was allowed to take one balloon home.
I had a wonderful journey with mine, - and, as follows, fallen in
love with him.
Next
day, I was meant to take my Staircase installation residing at
Chisenhale staircase down. Well, I am greatly enjoying building my
installations and watching them grow, however, destroying them,
especially those who stays in a certain space for a long time as
Staircase did, always make me feel sad as there is nothing left
behind after the deconstruction. So, to cheer myself up I thought to
suspend my balloon down the staircase atrium. The balloon was of a
nice round shape and white colour. Surprisingly, it happened to be
just perfect.
The story also alludes to our artist advisory committee meeting at Chisenhale studios, where at the moment of writing this commentary I have a studio space. In spite of the obvious success of the Staircase installation, a meeting did not want to approve my suggestion for making our staircase atrium an experimental non-format gallery space for site-specific installations open to proposals from the artist outside of the studio block. One of the reasons was that this challenging space is difficult to maintain and curate. Whatever the notion of curating means, in supporting of my idea I told: 'It can be as simple as a hanging balloon!' Ans so it was. The meeting happened on the 14-th of February, half an hour before my visit to Herrick Gallery.
With
thanks to Herrick Gallery and
Chisenhale Art Place.
