75. CHIYANG DUAN: A SPACE BETWEEN THE JEWELLER AND THE EYE.
CHACHA, “The unfamiliar objects”, Nylon, Iron and copper sulfate, London, 2022.
The first image I saw of yours was a portrait of a hand with rings of rusted metal - this image says so much! Time, decay, history - life! Please can speak of this work and the context from which this image comes from?
That image is a photo record of myself wearing my Jewellery collection that I made during my Royal College of Art work in progress show in 2022.
Walking in the city is the way for me to explore and understand the culture and people who are living there, the architecture is like a mirror that projects how people in the city imagine themselves living.
This collection is inspired by the city of London. I was not born here, so there are lots of buildings constructed with specific functions that even local people can’t understand since they are never open to the public.
I collected a few details (from the buildings) and rebuilt them in digital, made them into ring size, cut them in half, and then combined them with another piece of half-cut architecture, so people could wear them on their fingers and observe them in our hands.
Your training as a jewellery designer has underpinned the rigor of your practice and I see that skill of articulation within what you do, which contradicts the ease of the visual in a very interesting way... what do you feel your training as a jeweler has taught you?
It is interesting that the reason I decided not to continue to be a jeweler is because I hate the perfection that people in the jewellery industry are chasing.
Since jewellery is always a small object that even a small mark can really damage a masterpiece, but also because this passion for perfection - that I trained for - that helps me and pushes me to finish most of my work as a fashion designer - is literally something that can be immediately mass-produced… Even though some of my most conceptual work looks like a product, this attitude helps me to achieve what I think is important for design: practicality and solving problems.
Also, I am obsessed with material processing methods and a variety of material choices… For me, fashion design is never just made from fabric but also metal, concrete, plastic…
Your new work focuses on glasses design, and is characteristically specific to you, please can you introduce this body of work and the journey it has taken you on?
The eyewear collection represents my aesthetic, but more importantly, it shows one of my core design goals…
I have seen companies try to increase profit to generate a new category of products that cause a lot of waste of labor and resources by betting on a new product that may or may not succeed, especially in today's society, when 90% of categories have already been invented. This approach is often a huge waste. Transforming a popular design into a completely different look to extend its lifespan and give an old product a fresh feel can be an effective solution.
This is why I do eyewear, because I believe it has great potential to explore, since most of the eyewear designs, not just fashion brands but also tech companies, only develop their eyewear by only changing the shape of the frame, barely have designs to restructure the lens. I am trying to find a new direction by exploring the possibility of how the lens can be used and shaped.
The twisted structure perfectly fits the ergonomics, and the most challenging part of eyewear, which is the dramatic appearance without affecting usability.
I am very interested in this idea of fluidity within your work... within ideas, materials, space... can you reflect upon fluidity within your practice?
I really love the word fluidity, especially when you mention the fluidity between ideas, materials and space…
For me, design is rational and art can not lack sensitivity.
If we describe design as a rational approach, like a mathematical formula, then these three aspects are the triangle that formed design, because material build space, and space-inspired ideas, ideas affect material choice.
It’s a closed loop that I will keep reflecting on during the whole design process, and it helps me to keep a rational thought process.
Rational thinking helps me to remain calm when I am solving problems during my design process. I believe this is the most valuable method that I have learned in the UK education system.
Sometimes people call it critical thinking.
I loved how you spoke about seeking inspiration from Josef Alber's use of colour within your practice - the point of 'people before us' as you said... can you reflect more on this?
My eyewear collection is inspired by the London Underground, and the colour system includes a whole visual guide that is surprisingly similar to Josef Albers' series of paintings: colour studies and also Lucian Freud's paintings.
Josef Albers's colour theory is powerful and timeless.
The round/arc and smooth shape of the eyewear I have designed takes alot of inspiration from corner curves in the stations, which is a kind of detail that no longer appears in modern architecture. It is an aesthetic that only exists in the imagination of previous generations.
Chacha will join M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) editor in chief, Joe Richards, at the 2024 LAC London Emerging Artist Forum on Saturday 13th July 2024.
Tickets can be sort via eventbright
74. KAMI HU: A SPACE BETWEEN THE COSMOS AND THE DEW.
Kami Hu. 2023.
The first time we met - I heard you before I saw your work - do you remember this? You asked a question on a zoom without a camera - and you spoke as you create - poetically precise and rooted in curiosity - asking me about my perception of cosmic order...
Yes, that’s in a Critical Historical Study lecture I think, you mentioned of cosmic spirit, by coincidence, I’m working on my dissertation studying cosmic dance at that time. Though I forgot about what we talked, we knew each other without seeing or knowing anything, but with a concept, that’s cool. After the Zoom, we followed each other on Instagram, then finally we met in London.
And then when we met - I remember - iced avocado green juice and an armful of first edition catalogues of Isamu Noguchi with their canvas covers behind tawn paper jackets... and we spoke of the present and dreams for the future - that was a few years ago - and now you are in Shanghai - what are your memories and learnings from this time?
And crepes. We had crepes that day : ) mine is strawberry flavoured. You had classic vanilla flavoured. From London to Shanghai, my dreams are the same. My job required lots of travel, I worked in different cities not only in Shanghai, but sometimes in the wild. But I didn’t change much, I still use the tawny paper-covered notebook to record what I’ve learned.
Kami Hu, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, 2023. For M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) issue 3.
Your pictures for the new issue of M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) are charged with a state of MA - can you recall the experience behind making that series...
That’s an unexpected journey —— to the secret garden of Bonsai on the rooftop. Chinese try to conclude the natural mountains and rivers into their artificial works, either paintings or sculptures, also gardens. That’s Bonsai’s principle. Before I visited the garden, I read a photo book of Japanese photographer Yamamoto Masao. The name of the book is Bonsai - Microcosms Macrocosms, in Japanese and Chinese is 手中一滴, which means a dew in hand. This originates from Zen Buddhism—— the cosmos is in a dew. With these notions I observed the Bonsai very carefully, shot them in a close distance with micro lenses. After the Bonsai garden, I also visited He Garden built in late Qing Dynasty, where I saw how they use corridors, windows, mirrors to extend and fold spaces, to “frame” nature into architecture.
You didn't study fashion but you have such an understanding - a way far beyond clothing - the emotion, the touch, the science of transience, the freedom of movement, the erotism of the unsaid, the tension of poise... what is your reading of this period of time and how are you translating it from your media?
My favourite fashion designers are great artists at the same time, they know precisely what they want to convey, it can be a concept, or some kind of temperament. They use textile, cutting, styling, shows to perform their art. As an image maker, I try to understand and feel the spirit in their design, imagine the profile of who will wear this, then I choose my tool to annotate the design. Fashion is a strong manifesto of “who I am”.
You studied in London during such a period of change and unrest - what do you feel is the legacy - the effect of that period on culture in terms of your generation?
We learned to live with uncertainty, and witnessed the fragility of human beings and social structures. We are aware of wilderness in civilisation. Many of my generation moved from metropolitans to small towns and countryside. I personally think it’s good, since it’s normal if we look through our history.
Kami Hu, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, 2023. For M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) issue 3. Still life image: Harry Nathan.
73. ANTHONY McCALL: A SPACE BETWEEN MIRAGE AND EXISTENCE.
Anthony McCall, Solid Light, Tate Modern - LONDON.
Anthony McCall, Smoke Screen III, 2017. Courtesy of artist and Sprüth Magers Gallery.
To glide as a ring - as to become a drawing - within the pages of spliced circles and pointed spires.
To watch the air - become visible in swathes - as the motes of sand flow within a chamber of still.
Image: Kyung Hwa Shon.
As a flash of an eclipse - the corona impossible - to kiss and part as a diagram divides, as the Vitruvian turns, pressing down and turning back.
Presence of the invisible - as air plumes in the inky soft of a darkness created - to become embedded as a scratched line - as a rain of electric - as a ruthless calm. To distill a consequence of a speed of light - as a disturbance of science.
To watch a puppetry of shadows - mime discovery - to explore the edge of a ray as a skins illusion - as a levitating sheer - as a mirage of existence.
A commune of sitters - watch - in awe within this tented intimacy, solemn and sheltered. As to moon bathe beneath - this synthetic synthesis of a starless sky - taught sheer within a loom of lunar threads.
To reach forth and pluck at strings of light with diversive curiosity - expectant of sound - yet met with a silence of imagined particles, as granules of erasure - remove the surface of a page.
Image: Kyung Hwa Shon.
Anthony McCall: Solid Light - Tate Modern - Until 27 April 2025.
Special thanks: Anna Overment at Tate Modern and Kyung Hwa Shon.
72. GEOFFREY HOLDER: A SPACE BETWEEN NOW AND NEVER.
Boscoe Holder | Geoffrey Holder - Victoria Miro - LONDON.
Geoffrey Holder, Swimmers II, 1986, Coloured pencil on paper, 91.4 x 116.8 cm 36 x 46 in. Victoria Miro.
Skin - touched with ocelot spots as dappled as tender touch - applied by fingertip to ponder and play in the hushed russles of a garden deep - leafily surrounding shoulders as sheets - envelop - and hands stretch as outlined returning -
To tessellate time - holding on to these moments - as leaves move as a shoal and this motion melds to be - as to camouflage into the animal - back into the charcoal page - pulled from a ream.
The hummingbird flashes of gloss hover as luster of life - as crayoned plethora to bloom.
To grasp the sides of this boat where water as chiffon veils a body beneath - to lip in whites as a torn edge - tepid and still - the surface vertical as the undulating body as landscape protrudes - as toes rest on enamel base and eyes close as in halcyon days.
To pool and rest within a surface - stretching to reach for a space between now and never.
Gloved in the diaphanous grazes of lightness.
As in the echos I swim within myself - outreach in joyous release - to join the endless rhythms of ease - and face a lullaby of surrender.
Geoffrey Holder, Nude Lovers Embracing, (detail) Conte crayon on paper mounted on black paper, 120.7 x 90.2 cm 47 1/2 x 35 1/2 in. Victoria Miro.
Boscoe Holder - Geoffrey Holder - Victoria Miro - Until 27 July 2024.
71. MICHAËL BORREMANS: A SPACE BETWEEN STATES.
Michaël Borremans: The Monkey - David Zwirner - LONDON.
Michaël Borremans, The Spaceman, 2023. Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches. - Image courtesy David Zwirner.
To see a little scene play as if opening - in a space between states - of dreaming and awakening - a kindred forest sprouts from a nursery floor - feathered shadows emerge to dart in the imagined glow of birthday candles - memories returning in a fleeting -
Reimagining a past as vital as a present. Are these the monkeys of fables - the pinpoints of lucid imaginings? Disturbing my consciousness.
Padded armour protects and maintains control - as to bolster - to prevent bruising and yet to withhold growth.
Sweltering satins are stainless - evading permanence.
Dazed expressions caught - in thought - watching horizons of unseen landscapes where eyes murmur in weariness and these suits of armour - awaiting battles - never to arrive - ready to move yet exhausted from internal wars - to remain paused as a shadow supports the sheen of sateen - tarnished as the lustre dissolves to fevered flesh.
To sketch with paint as Magritte - to anticipate an impression before the moment is lived - before these moments are lost - to errantly dissipate from view as a thought passes - as a cloud blocks the sun.
Where the face is enclosed as a miniature - framed by repression - enforced by preparation.
As images progress - a paused surface - now encased behind glass - seen to frighten with feeling - as a witnessing of experience - caught between gazes - from childhood to adulthood - to look down from above as to stand over a world accepted.
A monkey becomes me, becomes us - as I do not see your face - the stretched shadows on a boundary - glaze into the ochres of the unknown - as a micro figure falls - rigid to return or to become itself - adult and brittle - dry of lucidity.
And yet these gleamings of forehead and lustrous satins remind - that to sweat is to live - that despite this control to perspire - is evidence of being - not just existing.
The monkey faced friend - invisible no more - as a toy of before - re-found in the confluence of childhood. Those placid eyes wet from tears - or the varnish of remembered emotion - trespassing - a smeared collar and tender tipped ears - as a flash bulb searches in urgent remembrance - looking back to stare as if for the first time - when once the gaze was invisible - from seeing so many times.
Imperceptible to observe - to imagine as a fly on a wall - to return to satin as if to costume the awaiting matinee of again and again - and yet these occasional shadows - remind of a reality - which is evidenced and matters more as a truth grows - and a face begins to dissolve - as I try to remember.
Michaël Borremans, The Gardener, 2023 - Oil on wood panel, 7 7/8 x 11 3/8 inches (20 x 29 cm) - Image courtesy David Zwirner.
Michaël Borremans - The Monkey - David Zwirner - LONDON - Until 26 July 2024.
Special thanks: Sara Chan and Niamh Brogan at David Zwirner.
70. PAOLO ROVERSI: A SPACE BETWEEN MOTION AND EMOTION.
Paolo Roversi - Palais Galliera - PARIS.
Paolo Roversi, Audrey, Comme des Garçons, Paris 1996 - Polaroid originaux.
A thread of light glides to splay across a herringbone of parquet -
- where walls are remembered in the warmth of wine held up to the sun - swilling to blur as to refocus a maze of memories -
- a tiny deckle-edged image hovers in a frame - as the tawn flutterings of a butterfly waits - illuminated as balletic - fuse into focus - in the familiar smoke of one whose gaze evokes the form of the ephemeral.
Walls concave as if in motion - a gallery as womb - as a zoetrope stilled - portraits watch - as to walk these rooms - is to become the motion - where the many faces combine to one - emotion paused in motion.
To draw close - to breathe in a composure of chemistry - where the vermillion and emeralds of stained glass evoke the whispered prayers of a chapel of our lady - an ode to the girl - before she becomes herself - the fairies of flashes to shimmer as the phosphorescence - of the first sight, the fleeting, the last good buy.
As walls become sheer, in this vestry of clouds - a scrim of washes - veil these in-betweens - where polaroid becomes picture - where time abates - where you are still here.
Paolo Roversi, Palais Galliera, Paris. Curator: Sylvie Lécallier, Scenographer: Ania Martchenko.
Palais Galliera - Paris - Until 14 July 2024.
Images: Louise Desoeuvre
Special Thanks Ania Martchenko
69. MAXSHO: A SPACE BETWEEN CREATION AND COMMUNICATION.
MAXSHO, No Dey Squeeze Face (Dont Worry), 2023.
‘I’m not creating to create - I am creating to communicate’ M.
The first time I saw your work and was really knocked out was the multi-colored swathes of rhythmic sound in a film - I remember being hypnotized by that piece… (Life is Colour, 2020).
I am fascinated with the prospect of creating tangible renderings of the intangible sound vibrations that pervade our surroundings. Using digital programming, I employ sound as a medium to give form to abstract concepts. In essence, I utilise sound waves like the strokes of a brush, painting diverse landscapes and exhibiting its prominence in our daily lives. I relish in using sound as a conduit to traverse distinct epochs, emotions, and dimensions.
Your connection to music seems cellular, can you express when you started to play with this medium and how you use it in your life?
Music and sound have been consistent elements in my life since my formative years, shaping my understanding of the world and serving as my unique vocal signature amidst the ambient cacophony. My work with sound involves recycling musical fragments to create dreamlike visualisations. I aim to uncover and harness the potential of sound as a design language - the emotions evoked by a song or the ideas sparked by a seemingly disparate sound, if carefully interrogated, hold immense creative potential.
You iterate so much, so many tests for thoughts, like digital sketches, can you expand upon your creative process and how you develop your ideas?
Every day starts with a simple question - what can I create today? This compels me into a labyrinth of exploration, studying diverse artists and creators. The artistic milieu is teeming with intricate, provocative works that consistently pique my curiosity. A perpetual thirst for deeper visual and spiritual experiences propels my creative endeavors. My approach involves perpetual mental manoeuvres, akin to a decorator rearranging a living space. I continuously redefine and reimagine elements within the virtual reality of my mind.
There seems to be increasing levels of fear circulating within digital media, so much mistrust, and yet the landscape is changing constantly - offering up extraordinary works that reflect a sense of flux, how do you feel about working as a digital artist within this time?
The key is to continuously acknowledge the expansive potential of this relatively nascent medium. As artists, we have just begun to scratch the surface. Guided by Nina Simone's famous quote - "An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times," it is incumbent upon us as artists to elucidate both the bright potential and the negative threats posed by this technology to society.
What fundamentally have you learned so far, since graduating?
Since graduation, my biggest realisation is that the work I create is part of a lifetime odyssey, which began at birth. I posit that the moment a newborn cries out in this world, they leave a lasting imprint, making an audibly important statement. An understanding of this notion elucidates the fact that our subsequent journey, albeit fraught with economic challenges, forms the larger narrative of our lives. The most important task at hand, therefore, is to remain faithful to our unique 'sound.'
Above: MAXSHO, Life is Colour, 2020.
68. WEIFAN WANG: A SPACE BETWEEN REVEAL AND RELIEF.
Wei Fan "Eye of Jung” 2024.
“I’ve practiced these words for 20 years now, but maybe being candid isn’t the best idea. I’m starting my countdown again, another 20 years. Maybe it might be the right time by then.” W.W.
Please can you introduce your film HEY DAD
HEY DAD is a confession of my own 20-year struggle to come out as a gay men to my father, I turned this personal emotion into a journey in which the protagonist is determined to find his father and reveal the secret. The starting point of the script came from an argument I had with my father when I was 20 years old. At that moment, I was debating whether or not to tell him I am gay, but after cooling down, I still thought that the consequences of confessing would not be any better than having a harmonious relationship we have now. Therefore, I dismissed the thought. After this incident, I have always wanted to visualise complex emotions in my mind, not only to help me face my own issues, but also create a queer animation work with no love story, no quarrels, but purely private and introverted via my life experiences, bringing a gentler perspective to our society and let people understand and discuss another side of the queer community.
I also wrote a prologue at the beginning of the film. “I’ve practiced these words for 20 years now, but maybe being candid isn’t the best idea. I’m starting my countdown again, another 20 years. Maybe it might be the right time by then.” It condenses what the protagonist, me, is trying to say to my father, the society and myself, through this story.
The work is highly personal, and yet there is a very human story at the films core, a feeling that we can all relate to - seeking approval - do you feel a sense of catharsis from making this work?
Indeed, completing this film was like resolving a knot in my heart. Even though the issue seems to be unresolved in the end of film, I still felt relieved at the moment I finished it. It was also like a sense of giving myself clarity for the past 20 years. I have always believed that only stories that go deep enough into oneself can resonate with the viewers. Therefore, I hope that I can use this personal work to bring not only for my own sake, but also for all viewers who have experienced similar interpersonal relationships, a gentle exit for relief.
As mentioned, the personal nature of the work feels very precise, you have even provided the voice for your lead character - and yet there is a sense of spatial distance felt within the experience of viewing the work. Did you manage to reach a critical distance while making the work to be creatively objective?
I didn't really set out to create the feeling for the audience in terms of the narrative and the images. It was probably because when I was writing the script and designing the animation scenes, I intuitively wanted to express the emotional distance between me and my father, and thus create an atmosphere of emptiness and loneliness. In addition, perhaps deep down, I was still a bit reluctant to reveal myself too openly to the public, so as for the dubbing, in fact, I did look for a voice actor in the beginning. But as I said before, I ultimately thought that this story was a knot in my heart, if I couldn't face myself, then it would be a lose the original purpose of this work. So in the end, I chose to put my own voice into the film.
You manage to do something extraordinary - you transport your audience beyond the medium of film itself - you evoke emotion that is fraught and tender at the same time. Can you express the process you undertook to translate your emotive narrative in a visual way?
I am very fond of watching films and images, from animation, live action to video art works. During my four years of studying animation at the Taipei National University of the Arts, one of the most influential experiences for me was reading a lot of different types of images and finding my own visual language from them. During the process, I found that I was deeply inspired by the slow cinema narratives of directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming-Liang. Their use of long shots always leaves me with the feeling of being wrapped up in the story, and the emotions that flow from the images also linger longer and deeper in my mind.
With their influence, I created an interiorized and magical realistic atmosphere by all the metaphors such as statues, television, seagulls, countdowns, to pile up the complex emotions that I face in the film, in the hope that the viewer can follow the steps of the protagonist and experience this journey step by step at the same time they watching the film.
What have you learnt through the experience of making this work and do you have a sense of what you would like to do next?
Making animation is a constant communication process for me. From the time I had the initial idea for the script at the age of 20 to the time I finished the animation film at my 26, I gradually came up with the answer to the issue of my relationship with my father. It was more than just a simple question of whether or not to come out of the closet. Rather, it was the whole process of thinking in the production that allowed me to find the balance where I am most mentally comfortable at this point of time.
As for my next move, I currently started planning for my next short film. HEY DAD corresponds to the core of my lived experience in my early 20s. After turning 25, my life changed even more, I started working as an employee, I became a partner in a relationship, and I even went to London as a student to further my studies. All these new identities - the overflow of stories came with new interpersonal relationships and issues that made me want and need to visualise and express within my next works.
67. CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI: A SPACE BETWEEN THE DEPICTED AND THE DEPICTOR.
Brancusi - Centre Pompidou - PARIS.
Constantin Brancusi, La Muse endormie, 1910. Bronze 16 x 27.3 x 18.5 cm. © Succession Brancusi - All rights reserved (Adagp). Photo : Centre Pompidou, Mnam-Cci/Adam Rzepka/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn
Sparkling marble - melded to stroke a face in tender reach - a caress of strokes - pound a million grooves to form a smooth.
A learning of sacred objects - loaded - extracted artifacts as exotic fashion - to mimic in verb to form haute erotica - these fevered studies inspire iterative fantasies - as scribbled lapis lips - to kiss the page as crayoned desire - to be conjured into a life again - to capture the air of change in the stone of a quarried mind - to be birthed through violent rhythms - to be-come a new - gleaming - cast to form - beautiful - yes - while eyes remain closed. Do you see me now?
A babies face - fast asleep - morph to form - to awaken to recognise tiny features from the amorphous gleam of the cellular start - exposed in vitro - to incubate studies from the quilted and cradled - to expose alone - pourously milkless - to become an example - to doze on a tiny carpet of precise shadows.
La Muse endormie, 1910.
Golden as Nefertiti - to lay next to you - to begin to listen - a tender reflection behind the glasses to perceive the brilliance - from the pressing of curiosity - but to protect from the chill of reality - when the imagined warmth of a breath felt as I rest closer - of wet hair combed back and the architecture of the arch - gliding as a wing.
To concave the room and hold a light within - the curving gleams to invert a moment - to mirror these shadows - falling forth to pool a reflected twin - as the dreams of memories pour and I reimagine a past.
Constantin Brancusi
66. MO NAN: A SPACE BETWEEN IMMEDIATE AND INFINITE.
Mo Nan,‘Mirror Mirror’, image courtesy of the artist.
‘I still clearly remember one evening when I was very young, lying on my bed with the golden sunset shining into the room, a flock of wild geese flying by the window, and the sound of an old-fashioned clock ticking nearby... I am always looking for that feeling; it makes me feel like I am falling into an infinitely deep, safe abyss’… M.N.
The first time I was aware of your work, was seeing some still images of an imagined landscape, a desert with a swarm of mythical animals flying through the sky, I immediately thought of Dali - and also a feeling of digital flux - I remember how the image appeared to be broken, glitched - disturbed. Please can you reflect on this work and explain why and how it came into being?
Dali was indeed my artistic inspiration. I remember seeing Dali's work when I first started my undergraduate studies, and I was deeply attracted by the surreal ambiguity, heavy metaphors, and the blurred boundaries between dream and reality. My work has always tried to pursue and recreate that surreal feeling, often imagining bizarre worlds in my mind. This film is my graduation project at RCA, "The Self of the Edge of the Self." It tells the story of how our identity and self-perception change and are influenced in this digital age—everyone is in, to some extent, fluid and indefinable. This represents both the freedom and confusion brought by the digital age.
Mo Nan, ‘Final Flight Visa’, garment design: Suza Vos, image courtesy of the artist.
Disturbance appears to play a big part of the visual identity of your work - the juxtaposition that you are incredibly calm and composed and yet your work is often very violent and arresting…
Perhaps that's true! Maybe I am a person who experiences a lot of anxiety. I can always keenly sense the immense anxiety rapidly spreading in this digital age. It could be due to the current society that focuses excessively on efficiency, where everything is replaced by quick and short-term gains. Or it could be because the world seems to be on the brink of chaos: pandemics, wars, financial crises, etc… as if something big is about to happen. I believe my work reflects the current era and my personal experiences living within it.
Visually you explore traveling and exploration within the work, each film feels like a different place. You continue to return to London from China - what does London represent to you, why do you want to stay here and why do you voyage visually within your practice?
London is the first city I settled in after leaving China. It is an international place that clearly reflects my race, nationality, and identity. In London I first directly faced the issue of identity politics, which was also the origin of my first film. This city led me to start reflecting on human identity and race, followed by further thoughts on contemporary identity issues—digital anxiety and the alienation of self-recognition. Voyage is a primary expression in my work, and I think it is also because I am currently in a state of voyage myself. My life and future hold many uncertainties, and this sense of journey is reflected in the form of my work.
Mo Nan, Image courtesy of the artist.
You collaborate a lot within your work, with many different practitioners - so many strong identities, and yet your work always returns to a visual space - to an atmosphere of feeling that is specifically your own - can you contemplate your creative process when working solely within your own practice and how it differs from working with others?
I first think about a worldview, about the story I want to tell. This part usually takes up most of my project time. It's somewhat similar to the standard process of making a film: first I come up with the script, characters, scenes, dialogues, etc., then proceed with storyboard drawing. In collaborations, my team members would handle the music, costumes, dialogues, and voice acting. I think because the worldview does not change during collaborations, it always returns to that familiar visual atmosphere in the end. The biggest difference is in the roles. When working with others, I step back from my director role, respecting the director's vision in the project, and use my style and skills to collaborate and complete the project.
I am fascinated by a perceived aesthetic nostalgia within your work, a specificity from the worlds of gaming / animation which feels to hybridise American and Japanese graphic styles from the late 20th century. Yet other layers seem to stretch and distort, future nostalgia - as if we enter a 1980s television screen from a time not yet lived…
This sense of 'return,' the peculiar retro feel, is the surreal atmosphere I have always sought and tried to present in my work. I am a super fan of 90s Japanese anime such as Akira, Perfect Blue, Ghost in the Shell, etc. I still clearly remember one evening when I was very young, lying on my bed with the golden sunset shining into the room, a flock of wild geese flying by the window, and the sound of an old-fashioned clock ticking nearby... I am always looking for that feeling; it makes me feel like I am falling into an infinitely deep, safe abyss, a realm of irrational thinking. Every time I create that visual atmosphere, I feel I am getting closer to a place in my heart that transcends reason. It’s like a small dot of light, very distant but clear. I think this is what I have always wanted to present.
Mo Nan, image courtesy of the artist.
65. CATARINA RICCABONA: A SPACE BETWEEN KNOTS AND FLOATS.
Catarina Riccabona: Siblings, 8 Holland Street - LONDON.
Catarina Riccabona, Left, Right and Center, 2024 - Vertical diplych handwoven in linen, paper yarn & raffia. H100 x W120cm (per panel) (8957). Image: M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) May 2024.
‘I used knots, floats and cut floats as metaphors for states of relationships. Knots are visible connections and repairs… All threads are rooted in the same web from which they emerge and into which they go back, but temporarily they exist in parallel worlds…’ C.R.
Please can you introduce your exhibition: siblings?
'Siblings' is a site-specific exhibition of 14 paper yarn tapestries, made from 26 individual hand-woven panels, at 8 Holland Street's Flagship at St James's Park, London. This new body of work came into being in response to recent events in my family life that have been at times quite challenging and overwhelming. While these works have a very personal starting point, the themes and questions embedded in them can be relevant in a more universal context.
Grief / loss
Conflict
Betrayal
Legacy
Loyalty
Relationships
Communication
Connecting and connections
Expectations
Needs and neediness
Responsibility
Conflict of interests
Values
Unity
Support
Belonging
Control
Power
Group vs individuals
Identity
Stagnation
Change
Catarina Riccabona, Awake at Night, 2024 - Singular panel handwoven with reused wool, raffia, paper yarn & sisal. H150 x W120 cm (8956).
Seeing the works hanging within a room, I felt that many of the proportions appeared as mirrors or screens, how the viewer would stare deeply into their surfaces - they seem to reflect something deeper, and the sense of movement is fascinating - like a monitor detecting different frequencies, in between channels - and yet with no sense of needing to be tuned into focus.
The works were made specifically with the exhibition rooms in mind. The proportions of all works were chosen to work with the existing panelling on the walls of this period town house. The suggestion of mirrors / screens is very appropriate, these woven panels could serve as surfaces onto which the viewer projects their own reflections and thoughts. I think the specific architecture might also be evocative of mirrors and screens.
The words 'monitor' and 'frequencies' made me think of the strong link between computers and looms. Both operate based on binary code, everything is expressed in combinations of zeros and ones or ups and downs. In the weaving process each thread can only be either lifted up (=one) or left down (=zero).
A weave notation (a printed or drawn diagram of a particular weave pattern) typically shows the pattern expressed in small black and white squares that indicate the thread positions in the pattern. For plain weave for instance, the most basic weave pattern, the weave notation looks like a checkerboard: one up (black square), one down (white square) in one row, then in reversed order: one down, one up in the following row and so on.
In many of the Siblings tapestries I symbolically used an (enlarged) arrangement of blocks, woven in tapestry technique, that mimics the weave notation for sateen, a weave pattern that creates the smoothest possible surface. It symbolises my hope and wish that relationships in my family become smooth again.
The surfaces of the works are very sensory, particularly in the series where knots are more pronounced - they are fragile and yet seem intricately robust like a mesh - papery light and somehow defiant from breaking...
I used knots, floats and cut floats as metaphors for states of relationships. Knots are visible connections and repairs. 'Floats' refer to areas in the woven surface where the weft yarns float / travel across the warp yarns without interlinking (they just appear as parallel lines). All threads are rooted in the same web from which they emerge and into which they go back, but temporarily they exist in parallel worlds, run in different directions, seemingly without interaction or connection. Cut floats represent disconnect, tension relief, interrupted continuity and chaos.
Catarina Riccabona, Alignment, 2024 - Diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn & raffia H200 x W120 cm (per panel) H200 x W240 cm (Approx total dimensions) (8953).
The sense of flags felt striking also, of borders and identities - I felt a sense of warning signs, of peace signs, of a sense of distance, defiance of order and re-order, personal and yet also universal somehow...
I like this description very much. Working on these pieces gave me space to process and learn. The same events and circumstances that catapulted my family into chaos, upheaval and estrangement also created new possibilities, reinforced alignments and a stronger sense of unity. There is simultaneity and coexistence of opposite aspects, complexity. In turn, there is choice of what to focus on and what to let go.
The shadows cast on the walls, like ephemeral linings - where the pieces hung were very interesting, tenderly present like reassuring echos - capturing the atmosphere and yet muffling the vivid energy of the works...
Maybe the appearance of those shadows - which only happened once the tapestries were installed on the wall - represents a new moment in time, something emerging and part of a ripple effect that has its origin in the making of these works. For me personally the process of creating and making has been as significant and meaningful as the result. Now that the pieces have left my studio and hang in a new context, it is time for me to step back and let them be in the world, full of surprises and new possibilities.
Catarina Riccabona, Ghost, 2024 - Vertical diptych handwoven in white linen, paper yarn, alpaca & raffia H160 x W230 cm (8952).
Catarina Riccabona Siblings - 8 Holland Street 34a Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AB. Until 6 July 2024.
Thank you: Benjamin John Hall and Dr Kyung Hwa Shon.
64. LOUISE BOURGEOIS: A SPACE BETWEEN IMPLICATION AND APPLICATION.
Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art - Barbican - LONDON.
Louise Bourgeois, Arc of Hysteria, 2000, Fabric. Images: Sunny Sun for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) May 2024.
Suspended in falling
a shadow gently turns -
as time slows and I watch you fall -
still asleep
still with eyes closed
as you continue -
and yet your cutout shadow rests
threads hang loose -
as if still growing
pulled up from a ground to snap and splay
fibres wrenched from the earth
ripped up from that dark place
where albino roots grow deep - searching
for nutrients - to feed you
the seams of form - to form you
stitches to fasten - to hold in the stuff
the stuffing inside from escaping
to be suspended from a single point -
a line - invisible from afar
umbilical tethered to a ceiling far above - too far to notice.
in the shadow - the little limbs
stretch out in gentle comfort - as an arm falls
naked
tiny toes point - exposed from imagined shoes
those seams - crudely stitched - as if in haste
not trying to heal from future scars - whip stitched as a hemp sack - repaired from overuse
elderly underwear - seen - the pink of a healing ointment applied from a tin
to fingertip rub - to sting the skin
the occasional tuck of a gathering of excess - squeezed to match the seam
as I look down on you
high above - like a bird or a bernoulli neighbour - watching from afar - watching you sleep
Louise Bourgeois, Arc of Hysteria, 2000, Fabric. Images: Sunny Sun for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) May 2024.
63. JIHYE SEO: A SPACE BETWEEN SWEET AND LIFE.
‘It's difficult for me to separate childhood and adulthood… I still love to eat ice cream and enjoy watching ants moving something to their house… when I was a child, I often more think about life after death and loneliness of existing in the universe...’ J.S.
Jihye Seo - ‘Tree Trunk, Winter’, Sugar, spices and food color ink in frame 80x 100 cm, 2024.
The first time I saw your work, was in a crit - a tiny painting of a boat - floating on the surface of a sea - and there was a joy within your translation that captured me immediately - I could feel that sunshine and then to see these works in sugar - there is still that lightness - but also a certain heaviness - maybe that's just me - but I am very much drawn to this contradiction... what is your feeling on your work as a whole, made within this year?
I didn’t intend to create contradict work, but looking back myself, it’s part of reflection of my personality and taste. I’m often fascinated by conflicting concepts such as old and new, birth and death. (I was a fan of musical Jekyll and Hyde as well.) I enjoy the certain energy generated from the boundary when two different concepts put together.
When I was much younger, I was more intrigued by Hieronymus Bosch or grotesque shapes. On the other hand, now days I am big fan of David Hockney, bright colors and nature. Those changes might naturally be shown on my work.
Long time ago, I used to worry about myself not having firm identity or taste, which I thought it’s important quality of the artist, but these days I am happy to allow myself to have some space to be changed and let it be.
Jihye Seo - ‘Tree Trunk, Winter’, Sugar, spices and food color ink in frame 80x 100 cm, 2024.
Conceptually - the temptation to read into these works is fascinating - when held to the light - there is a sense of opacity that feels like glass - have you considered working with glass? And what is your visceral reading of the materiality of the sugar works?
I also imagined of making with glass, since it might be much more permanent and easier to keep it not worrying about temperature or humidity. However, it might become different project while losing sense of smell and some texture, which is one of the important parts of my works in terms of engaging with all senses. But I honestly don’t have any knowledge about the process working with glass, so I want to try in the future.
I think the materiality of the sugar work is the moment of the sugar powder being caramelized syrup in the certain degree. Once the sugar transforms its shape, it allows itself to react and embrace with the environment such as light.
I was shown an illustrated book that you contributed to recently and so am aware of you as storyteller - the connection to childhood - and yet these works seem to step between different stages of life - can you reflect on the sense of time within the works made of sugar?
It's difficult for me to separate childhood and adulthood even though I made children’s picture books. For example, one of the books is about ants delivering ice cream to their ice cream car, and I still love to eat ice cream and enjoy watching ants moving something to their house. Also, when I was a child, I often more think about life after death and loneliness of existing in the universe. On the other hand, as grownup, I more seriously think what kind of bread to eat next morning before sleeping.
I think all works are results of my thoughts and experience of life in different shape. There are some qualities I lost while growing up, but I still feel like I am quite living like a child.
What inspires me greatly on viewing these pieces are there multi-sensory nature - you inhale them, their touch is sticky in part and they are fragile while being heavy - contradictory and yet light and somehow imagined - how did you feel in creating them, and why did you make them?
Looking at my results, I found out it’s quite similar with my experience of the trees which was my inspiration in the first stage. While living here, my favorite routine was walking around a park in the morning and night looking and touching trees. The texture of tree trunk is very rough but warm like a hand at the same time. On top of that, I sometimes notice the fallen trees, which made me think that it’s dead, but at some point, it suddenly blooms leaves and flowers.
Those observations naturally lead me to think life is beautiful as it is. The beauty of a tree is that it grows embracing all days including storm and sunshine. The human being also can fulfill growth when we accept every experience from life. This is how we become distinctive being from each other without the need of comparison. When I make caramelized sugar, I found out it can be bitter or sweet by temperature, and even texture can be different. Nonetheless, it is still sugar, sweet life.
The first inspiration rooted from the pattern and texture of tree trunks, but it more represents our life comprising our own world, which is beautiful as a big image despite the painful days.
I found this painting, propped against a wall and was told that they were being given away - which again I found really fascinating - this act of giving feels somehow conceptual to the nature of the works - like giving away sweets to friends - and knowing you a little - I feel that this spirit, this gesture is very connected to who you are - can you expand upon the life span of these works from idea to creation and beyond...
Since I am going back to Korea soon, and I don’t have space to save my works in London, I was very happy when they are taken by classmates and tutors. It’s meaningful when my works go to someone who can enjoy. Also, through this process, I was quite surprised how paintings can find its proper owner. For example, when I heard that you took my one of the pieces, I thought you were the right person to take it. The painting was made with much more calmer colors compared to my other works, and I thought it more matches with your image in my mind, which is night sea in a warm day.
In the very first stage, the crit you mentioned above, which is about the paintings of sea, helped me to decide where to start. At that time, as I understood, you advised me to engage with the sea directly and it might allow me to make more alive works. However, even though I agreed with your point, I couldn’t be that enthusiastic. I thought about the reason, and I found out I don’t have huge passion for the sea now. I like to visit sea, but I more love to engage with trees using all my senses all around year.
Then I decided to make a tree using sugar since I had seen peers experimenting with sugar and initially I was intuitively, playfully attracted to this material. Nevertheless, as discovering the character of sugar, it led me to keep trying to work on it. Then, I finally succeed to make a sculpture using sugar after repeating several failures. Until this point, I was not sure what I exactly want to tell through my works except the blur idea of engaging with trees. Then, one of my classmates told me my work looks like pine resin, which made me to come up the idea of scar and growth of trees. This allowed me to move my focus from making images about the nature to self-reflection through the nature. I started to make patchy shape using a variety of colors inside of a frame to represent my idea.
While working sugar painting, I could develop them getting lots of help, advice and support from the community. Therefore, I decided to make last bigger piece for everyone, hoping all of us have sweet days more often through the life. That might be slightly not coherent meaning compared to other pieces, but I thought that’s the joy of having journey of making paintings. Nothing was planned or clear at the first stage. It literally grew up from small seed and whole journey was the process understanding the character of sugar, myself and my community. I am not sure what would be next, but I am very happy to have experience of working with lovely people.
Jihye Seo - ‘Tree Trunk, Winter’, Sugar, spices and food color ink in frame 80x 100 cm, 2024.
62. RICHARD SERRA: A SPACE BETWEEN ABSORPTION AND DISSIPATION.
Six Large Drawings, David Zwirner - LONDON.
Richard Serra, Periodic Table, 1991, Paintstick on two (2) sheets of paper 83 x 149 inches 210.8cm x 378.5 cm RS-0324 SERR104559A - Photograph by Zhonghua for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) April 2024.
‘Black is a property, not a quality. In terms of weight, black is heavier, creates a larger volume, holds itself in a more compressed field. It is comparable to forging. Since black is the densest color material, it absorbs and dissipates light to a maximum and thereby changes the artificial as well as the natural light in a given room. A black shape can hold its space and place in relation to a larger volume and alter the mass of that volume readily.’ R.S.
Richard Serra, Kerouac, 2009, Paintstick on handmade paper 78 1/2 x 78 3/4 inches 199.4 x 200 cm RS-2266 SERR10506. Photograph by Zhonghua for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) April 2024.
Six remains - a burnt land in memory -
drenched dry as wax powdered cracked to demarcation -
to drain to disparate - as tar fractures to crisp.
To fill these planes of nothing
to flood these fields to edges tawn.
A blade tip - to split - as a board leaves a wall - a leaf peels a book - white sun reflected on a hanging sword -
- a shard under door - to watch a passing car - glide to silence
- to strip back to remember - a beginning - the papered beginnings
- to wrench out the entries - as endpapers remain and hardbacks nailed open.
A moon - viewed from afar - fallen still from the heat of attention.
- impressed, embedded with hushed suggestion - graveled to dust.
Blocks to black slammed to one - pressed between paintings as sculpture - faces hewn as raw.
As a space between scraping a sky - as a powercut blanks or quarried slabs wedge to blink between pagan beams - eclipse obelisks reach.
A scarred ridge - seamed without stitch - calm to observe - numb to jolt.
A verticle as velvet - sodden - brushed with a besom of wire - once controlled to caress - now disrupted from scrubbing. Not erasure - more exposure - and yet this mass of marks forms a mono - a once horizontal sheath - as a map, whose delineation long abraided - reveal to revert - return to the start.
Fiberious as filings held in state - A darkened grain advance of rust - to be studied - as a land mass bare.
Richard Serra, Triple Rift #2, 2018, Paintstick on four (4) sheets of handmade Japanese paper 9 feet 9 inches x 22 feet 3 x 6.7m RS-3952 SERR10507. Photograph by Zhonghua for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) April 2024.
Richard Serra - Six Large Drawings - David Zwirner - Until 18 May 2024.
Special thanks: Sara Chan and Niamh Brogan at David Zwirner.
61. TIANAN DING: A SPACE BETWEEN PROPS AND PROPER.
ALA ‘New story Intro 02: Office chair customised with ALA new material’. February 2024. Image courtesy of ALA.
‘I don’t have a grand yet to pull up a fashion show, the only thing I am chasing right now is being 100% honest with myself and my work. Every material I used and the techniques I chose are for a reason.’ T.D.
Your specificity with materials really fascinates me, you see things that others don't, and you see the opportunity and the language within the invisible and the overlooked - the resulting works are raw and yet refined at the same time and ultimately very modern as they reflect so much of today...
ALA TIANAN is a streetwear concept - it is a playful, critical experiment on clothes’ fabrication, cost, and function – inspired by the controversial issues of value and affordability in fashion.
In this new story "Tiny Room" (presented February 2024 - London), I tried to bring the pleather’s “value” back, especially the cracking, peeling, and unwanted pleather.
“Tiny Room” depicts a generation of transient kids leaving their hometown, finding self-acceptance and friendship. This is the story that happens in my community. I also dig into the story of people while exploring the property of pleather as a fabrication.
Pleather is a cheap “street” material that kind of stands for fast fashion, It gets criticized a lot because it is almost non-recyclable and it peels easily after long use. You can also see it on the motorbike, moped seats, or on the dumped sofa. My take on that is fixing the peeling, cracking bits, and transferring them to engraved patterns.
In the suburb area of my hometown, you can spot a lot of small town teenagers wearing pleather jackets, and they are so proud of owning them. I can relate to it a lot - not everyone can afford brand-new leather clothes, I think a good piece of clothing doesn’t value by how expensive its fabric is.
As an artist you are incredibly fluent with your visual communication - I really feel that your contribution to culture will be felt in the future when we look back at this time - how would you define your creative process in terms of objectives?
Thank you so much Joe for this comment!
To be honest, my last 3 collections, are all based on stories I have been through, I don’t have a grand yet to pull up a fashion show, the only thing I am chasing right now is being 100% honest with myself and my work. Every material I used and the techniques I chose are for a reason.
That’s also why I don’t think I am a fashion brand yet - I still create for myself and my friends, it is our story told in the language of clothes & fashion.
I will be moving forward and growing up - but I will be forever proud of these stories I created so far.
ALA ‘Black version kitchen towel jacket partly burnt & dissolved - knit section by Elaine Lip.’ July 2020. Image courtesy of ALA.
ALA ‘Engraved pleather body, lambskin arms.’ April 2024. Image courtesy of ALA.
The silhouette of the pieces you create are also very specific, in terms of form and the way garments fall off the body, again there is this reluctance within the shape that feels heightened because of the materials you develop and use, can you discuss what you feel you want to say with silhouette within your work as a whole?
I was trained as a menswear designer back when I was 19. To skill the menswear design and pattern cutting quickly, I have been working hard on military clothes, sportswear, and tech wear knowledge.
This time I am trying to find my “flow” in all these hardcore, streetwear types of garments, I do most of the pattern cutting and draping myself, and I am trying to gradually peel off my thought pattern of “uniform, armed, protected menswear”. I used some dress fabric, particularly Chinese silk, to see what a fabrication’s context could bring to a stereotypical streetwear and menswear image.
I remember visiting you at your desk as a student, it was mountainous with material tests and little iterative discoveries of magic - always so inspiring and clever, and funny! Always with that specific combination of a certain nostalgia without being retrospective, the Frank Ocean-ness and also something ferrel and yet so sophisticated. What do you remember from that time?
I love the word “Frank Ocean-ness”! I would describe my last few months in school as “ Frank-Oceany” too.
It was a bit sad at that moment as we know later we were all forced to leave because of the pandemic, but I am surprised that I finished the idea of using toilet paper to do leather-like garments. It presented during such an insecure & confusing moment in such a positive way, it also kind of perfectly matches the pandemic situation - people been panic-buying toilet rolls. The disposable has never been so precious.
I still appreciate that experience as it turns me into the designer I am right now.
M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN), Issue 1: Art Direction: Tianan Ding, Photographer: Lijuan Liu, Model: Xiaoyi Liu. September 2020.
Thank you again and again for those pictures that you made with Lijuan Liu and Xiaoyi Liu for the first issue of the magazine - as soon as the pictures came in, I knew that the eye had to be the cover!
It was a very special co-working experience - as everything was executed during the first lockdown 2020. We were only able to communicate through phone and video Zoom calls for the prep and art direction. We couldn’t get access to make big props or get a proper shooting studio, so we just made use of what we had.
We did the shooting in my flat at the end and I uber-ed the photographer Lijuan and model Xiaoyi to my place - during the shooting, Lijuan and I were using a thin glossy film, which is my graduation collection scraps - to layer the textures and shadows on Xiaoyi’s face. We soon found out the whole image was way cleaner than we thought - so we randomly splashed some spray paint over the film. We also did the test reprinting on kitchen paper, which is also part of my graduation collection techniques.
ALA ‘How much I love about the reflective’. February 2024. Image courtesy of ALA.
60. TINA MODOTTI: A SPACE BETWEEN REACH AND FALL.
L'œil de la révolution, Jeu de Paume - PARIS.
Lys - Vers 1924
As a cathedral reaches - as an opening ceiling - unzipping -
as a tender notion - as a darkness shocks to move in silence
as seams ridge and a casual nature is.
A functioning quiet - an ongoing nurturing and symbolism sustained - a scent imagined - an inhaled prayer.
A gloss of form and stillness of poise - to open and fall - eventually to decay - but for now eternal.
Nu - 1923 - by Edward Weston
A body bare - beneath the sun - as the skin turns - and points darken - as the eye glosses and hair heightens -
The shadow beneath the arc of the spine - beneath the slip of skin
- under arm - under knee - under face
- the shadow between an outline - which pools of rest - quiet and underseen as the focus holds the skin.
The eyelash fur - full - the eyebrow brushed - still
- the gloss of touch - the imagined touch -
In this heat - the beating heat -
pretending to be alone - when in fact - a subject is studied
As the rib cage forms - and the skin pulled over
- to form a landscape - a mountainous scape - to undulate and fall - to pool in the valleys and to rise - over nipple - under ear - over hip
The mirroring of anatomy and the casual asymmetry of the rest - of the calm - of an ease.
As a hand span rests in the cool of the unseen - to leave a momentary trace - an imagined imprint - on hot bricks baked underfoot.
Tina Modotti - L'œil de la révolution - Jeu de Paume - Until 12 May.
59. EKUA McMORRIS: A SPACE BETWEEN IDENTITY AND BELONGING.
‘My work speaks of the family and its extension, the everydayness of life and moments, but also the grappling struggle we all have when it comes to identity and belonging. In my case, I am always trying to get to the point of understanding what it means to be African Caribbean in Britain’. E.McM
Ekua McMorris, ‘We Played Spaceships 2’, image courtesy of the artist.
Ekua McMorris, We Played Spaceships 1, image courtesy of the artist.
Your relationship with the medium of photography and documentation is very particular, can you think back to the key moments of forming your visual language?
I grew up in a family of storytellers. I used to love resting my head on my mother’s lap, listening to her and her friends discuss, and reason the history and experiences of Black folks, politics, family, and the police. These stories took place in rooms that were filled with a variety of images, paintings, and illustrations. Regardless of the subject matter, there was a sense of warmth that enveloped the rhythmic flow of discussions that I was permitted to silently be part of. Always at the heart of these discussions, there was a feeling or a need of having to record and document these moments and faces that represented the diversity of Black life in Britain.
As I lay with my head on my mother’s lap, these stories would become pictures in my mind, that helped me understand the world and my place in it. The camera helped me capture the works and emotions I grappled with, working as a tool that allowed me to speak without opening my mouth.
Ekua McMorris, untitled, image courtesy of the artist.
Ekua McMorris, Me as a child 1983 Wilesden, image courtesy of the artist.
Carrie Mae Weems, in a lecture given at The Barbican last year, said how important it is to pay attention to your own work, as an artist, 'as your work will tell you what you are up to', can you reflect upon this statement in response to your own practice?
It requires sitting and listening to oneself and one’s work. There is a conversation, or a narrative that can take place, that at times goes beyond the purpose of creating the work. We have ideas of what the work will be about, but I think that changes once it has been created or given life.
My work is not just about the images that I make, they are also about the stories that they speak out to the world. My work speaks of the family and its extension, the everydayness of life and moments, but also the grappling struggle we all have when it comes to identity and belonging. In my case, I am always trying to get to the point of understanding what it means to be African Caribbean in Britain.
Ekua McMorris, How I will always remember you, image courtesy of the artist.
The subject of memory plays a key context within your work, please can you discuss this?
Yes, it does, this is because I know how precious it is. There is something so intangible about it, while at the same time, memories are so embodied.
I do not come from a financially rich family, but I do come from a culturally rich one. My mother ensured that we all had access to our heritage and culture, and a strong part of that was to expose us to the fullness of the past, of which my mother had many ways. But the storytelling made me pay attention to the importance of observing, recording, and telling our story of belonging, not just to the past but also to the now.
I suppose I am trying to do several things in my work, and one of them is to create images that one day will also be a part of the Black African, African Caribbean, and British experience.
Teaching is sometimes described as a calling, not a choice... You inspire your students deeply to commit to their practice and without instruction - I think great teachers possess that quality - as Louise Bourgeois said 'artists are born not made - There's nothing you can do for them'... how do you feel about this?
That is an interesting thought. I think, if one considered the ‘born-ing’ of an artist that can happen at any stage in life, then I agree. Some people are fortunate to be gifted from birth, to have an ability to create and see the world differently, for others I think it is about connections and moments that collide that can create an artist.
I think teaching is about showing students the value of listening to the self and their work and responding to knowledge through feeling and making.
I remember you advising someone once to sit with discomfort in order to learn and break a system of fear, which I thought was very interesting. When you work through ideas, I realise you often physically stand to process your thoughts. Physicality seems very important to your methods of thinking, can you expand upon this?
It requires a lot of energy and focus to stand or sit in front of a group of students, moving around enables the channelling of that energy.
I think there is an expectation that knowledge, learning, and change will come about instantly, when really it takes time, and sometimes that can be uncomfortable and challenging. I also find that it requires a shifting or position.
Movement also allows me the opportunity to process my thinking, to feel it and work with it physically. I suppose what I would like to demonstrate is that ideas are things that move, grow, change, and form.
Ekua McMorris, Dread, image courtesy of the artist.
A wall of your sitting room, in your childhood home was covered in images that your Mother placed together, can you tell me more about this?
My mother used images as an educational tool to familiarise us with our culture and history.
For my mother, positive images of African, and African Caribbean culture were placed as a counter-narrative to the negative stereotypes that were commonly placed throughout our childhood.
My mother wanted us to see ourselves reflected in those images so we could imagine a different reality.
For example, photographs of us as children were placed next to Black people from across the diaspora of great standing. The photo of the little girl on the mantelpiece is me, and above there is a photograph of Queen Mother Moore, an African American activist who suggested to the African Caribbean community here in London, that it was essential to archive their experience here in Britain, of which the Black Cultural Archives was born. You also see her wall, images of Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie Emperor of Ethiopia, Malcolm X and many others who fought for the liberation of all Black people.
Ekua McMorris, Mum and Makeda 1984 Kilburn, image courtesy of the artist.
Within your work, you have focused on archives, a physical space for order but also within a psychological state of time - why do you return to this?
I think that this goes back to your first question. The archive as site of storage and retrieval is an exciting one, particularly if we think of it outside of its traditional use. What if we think of it as a space that requires creative interaction to give it life, or new ways of engaging with it. When we delve into the archives, we allow documents or object from the past to time travel, which I think is a wonderful prospect. This also allows one to think about what an archive can be or contain, and what it can allow us to do, as Diana Taylor suggests, it can expand what we understand of the world.
For me, knowledge and it’s making is a form of storytelling, that is performative. I am most inspired when I am faced with a story of a thing, or how a moment came to be.
When working with a camera, taking a photograph, there is always that moment/s before the shutter is released. I love those moments; they can add so much more to an image than I think the image can do alone, but that also requires a different type of documentation.
Someone once said that I was an intuitive artist, and for a long while I thought of this comment negatively, but as I have got older, I can now hear what they were saying.
58. ENZO MARI: A SPACE BETWEEN PRODUCING AND LIFE.
Enzo Mari, Design Museum - LONDON.
'I want to create models for a different society - for a way of producing and living differently.' E.M.
16 Animali (‘16 Animals’) interlocking game, 1959. Image for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) April 2024.
'I suggest looking outside the window: if you like what you see, there's no reason for new projects. If, on the other hand, there are things that fill you with horror... then there are good reasons for your project.' E.M.
Lo zoo di Enzo by Nanda Vigo. Enzo Mari Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli. Image for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) April 2024.
Enzo Mari - Design Museum - Until 8 September.
Special thanks: Grace Morgan at Design Museum. Thank you Ania Martchenko for the recommendation.
57. CONNOR DILLMAN: A SPACE BETWEEN THRESHOLDS.
Connor Dillman,‘You are here’, 2024, 31.5x23.5 inches, oil on canvas.
‘Los Angeles…the city’s underbelly can be intoxicating. I would try to articulate it, but Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero does it best. I remember getting chills the first time I read one scene in particular in that story where Clay, the narrator, sits in drugged malaise at a Hollywood restaurant, watching as his ex-girlfriend’s car “glides out of the parking lot and becomes lost in the haze of traffic on Sunset.” My adolescence was spent reveling in that mundane, sun-baked magic. It fuels some people and swallows others.’ C.D.
Your work really fascinates me because I see a certain stillness within it, and yet there is also a feeling of movement, which feels sort of televised - as if the screen is frozen and these fragments are part of a larger frame... something entertaining and yet there is always a feeling of serenity which sort of breaks the context…
I appreciate that observation. I think the mood you’re describing is a result of the way my brain solidifies the visual information I absorb. Similar to how a writer might revise a first draft many times to sharpen its original form, there’s a kind of spontaneous honing process that happens once I’ve identified the skeleton of an image I need to paint.
Say for example that it comes from an in-situ sketch or a memory—there are blurry fragments of context attached to those kinds of source material. Working with that liminal recall can be exciting, but right now I’m more interested in what happens during the making of a painting when context is allowed to fall away in favor of a refined image with a certain cryptic conviction. Or hieroglyphic sensibility. And because these pictures often contain human bodies paused in poses, they can definitely nod to filmic compositions.
I remember walking through the studios in white city and seeing you working - engrossed within your internal space - can you reflect upon the space that you enter when you work?
Recently I’ve been thinking about my time in the studio as a series of thresholds. On the best days, where there is nothing to do but paint, it’s like slowly sinking through the zones of the ocean. Warming up physically is one threshold, trying to clear my mind is another. Then sustaining unbroken focus for a bit can lead to a nice flow. But a level beyond that is when I’ve been working steadily for a couple hours and the needle suddenly drops into a groove of blissful play bordered by deep concentration. That’s a sacred space for me. It’s where time doesn’t matter and my intellectual curiosities meet my childhood propensities. The ultimate mirror.
Connor Dillman, Los Angeles, 2022.
I remember you talking about being from Los Angeles and saying how the flashy side that maybe we know from Hollywood doesn't resonate with you as much as the nature side - do you still feel this way?
It’s true that my favorite spot facing the Pacific near Tower 21 on the Santa Monica sand will forever be where my soul meditates. It’s also true that I felt pretty out of sync with LA’s culture when I worked across a few different areas of its entertainment industry after college. In retrospect, though, I realize the tension I was carrying then had as much to do with my own lack of creative fulfillment as it did with that world’s frantic pace and overwhelming pressure.
And even the city’s underbelly can be intoxicating. I would try to articulate it, but Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero does it best. I remember getting chills the first time I read one scene in particular in that story where Clay, the narrator, sits in drugged malaise at a Hollywood restaurant, watching as his ex-girlfriend’s car “glides out of the parking lot and becomes lost in the haze of traffic on Sunset.” My adolescence was spent reveling in that mundane, sun-baked magic. It fuels some people and swallows others.
Connor Dillman, ‘E 16th St’, 2021, 24x30 inches, acrylic on canvas.
Your paintings seem to often be self-portraits, can you express why this is and what it is you have learned about yourself through the act of depicting yourself through your work?
Paintings can’t lie about the mental state of their creators when you stand in front of them. I’ve had many conversations with artist friends about that phenomenon of someone looking at a painting you’ve made and then naming a feeling they get from it that touches on something specific that you were contemplating privately while making the work. There’s a 1655 Rembrandt self-portrait hanging in the National Gallery in Edinburgh that paralyzed me when I saw it last year; the dire circumstances surrounding its creation came as no surprise when I learned about them later.
The primary function of self-portraiture for me is related to this transmission. It’s certainly cathartic to ruminate on life in real time when I paint myself, but more valuable to me is the experience of coming back to a self-portrait after a significant amount of time has passed since completing it. Its emotional truth then becomes strikingly clear and gives me a potent zap of the energy I was emitting at the time I made it. For me, there’s really no other mode of self-examination that compares.
You have lived in London for a few years now, why did you want to be here? And what has London taught you so far?
My conception of home is complicated by the fact I’ve always felt more of the world than from a specific part of it. I was lucky to grow up in a family that consistently traveled outside of America, and I think that’s a main reason why I felt tugged towards a place where I would be surrounded by people whose cultural backgrounds differ from my own. There are days walking in the busier parts of London when I’ll hear ten different languages being spoken in the span of five minutes—it’s a constant reminder of the scale of the human procession we’re a part
of, which is invaluable for coloring my life and practice with a sense of urgent purpose on a daily basis.
And on a less existential yet equally important note, my community here reflects this international diversity, which has completely changed the way I approach my relationships. It’s a privilege and so edifying to be regularly exposed to unfamiliar angles on language, friendship, politics, food, love, music…the list refreshes itself with each new day here.
Connor Dillman, Big Bear Lake, 2019.
56. JACQUES CAVALLIER-BELLETRUD: A SPACE BETWEEN SYNESTHESIA AND EVOCATION.
A Perfume Atlas - Louis Vuitton - GRASSE.
A Perfume Atlas
‘Perfume is a journey, intimate and motionless at first, an illusion that takes you by the hand to lead you somewhere else, to another emotion, another dimension, a completely different space-time.’ J.C-B.
‘I must have been fourteen when I stuck a blue Dymo label reading ‘osmanthus’ on a flacon, it symbolized for me the other side of the world, unknown lands that I would never visit.’ J.C-B
Pamphlet papers slip through fingers as notes of fragrance glide through the air and vanish into memory - cool to touch and warm to inhale.
Evocative images seemingly slipped between pages - collected as moments of realisation - of breathing in with closed eyes - to be transported in the crushing of a bergamot leaf in the hand to sense the Calabrian landscape - to be surrounded by the dark forests of El Salvadore and taste the scent of peeled bark burning to exude precious resin.
'A fragrance starts off as flowers, seeds, roots or rhizomes generously offered to us by nature, and we try to extract their scents as faithfully as possible. These scented plants flourish in distinctive soils, in various climates, giving them their specific olfactory characteristics' - I have learnt about geography through raw materials.' J.C-B
A Perfume Atlas
Then to the sheets of toothed cartridge signifying a change in terrain and tone, as brushes of illustrated waves of colour break into emotively pigmented studies of abstract expressions - to evoke the gloaming and dawns of distant lands where a harvest of ingredients are painstakingly picked and pressed at precise times of day and season.
Specimen sketches, ombred and floating - as if pressed between diary entries - evoke the plucked state of the article remembered and analysed. Ylang-ylang from Madagascar, Ambrette seeds from Ecuador, Indonesian Clove, Oud Assam from Bangladesh, Sicilian mandarin, Spanish rock rose.
To close the eyes and voyage back to a momentary place, where a stillness of emotion envelopes and evokes a consciousness of peace.
Eyes open and to return to the calm of Monsieur Cavallier-Belletrud's laboratory of memory - a space between the consciousness and the dappled Cézanne impressionistic green of a garden beyond. Collected vials of an assembly of rose petal shades, line deco shelves - casting tiny hues as stained glass in a chapel of science.
A Perfume Atlas
And so the perfume atlas charts an immersive tracery - touched by artisans whose fluency in the art of translating emotion is fathomless. It is in the mystery of the imagination that enables internal doors, closed in the compartmentalization of adulthood - to be reopened onto Rousseau rooms - to tread, barefoot into floors of earth and realise that ceilings are canopies of chorus.
'..in a more democratic and egalitarian light, where everything has its place and a role to play, where the wealthiest continents are not necessarily the ones that produce the rarest scents. This vision upholds the reality that most of these plants no longer grow in the lands where they originated. They have transplanted and acclimatized to foreign settings, where they have achieved their maximum expression.' J.C-B
Louis Vuitton: A Perfume Atlas
Special Thanks: Clara MREJEN and Ines Roger at Louis Vuitton.
Thank you Callum Helcke.