MARINA COLLARD
A series of works including performance, ceramics and text.
Hand-made, multiple and imperfect. Impermanence, lack of purpose, labour and fragility.
I am more or less fine
The ceramic pieces are containers into which to pour our hopes and fears. The outer surfaces with a limited number of words written or scratched onto them, force me to write only what is essential because of the limits of the available surface. Each container is an offering towards a way of 'holding it together'.
The attention necessary to select no more than 6 words to say what you need to say, is set alongside the slow destructive dissolving of the containers as they fail to hold water. Each container is wrapped as a present, a gift, a thought, wrapped also, in an act of 'holding it together.'
Pieces for Destruction
Pieces for Destruction includes live performance and video. The work addresses questions of excess, waste and labour as well as the ephemeral nature of performance and exists as a metaphor of our lives.
The performance spills from indoors to outdoors making passing people and vehicles participants in the work. The pieces are placed and balanced in precarious places which have an abundance of passing people and traffic. They are nudged off ledges, crushed underfoot or destroyed in other ways, providing a space for a new ceramic piece to replace the previous one. The act of placing the ceramic pieces is performed with gentle attention knowing they will be destroyed almost instantly when accidentally touched. The destruction is at times unnoticed and at times generates surprise in those who inadvertently observe the consequences of their ordinary actions.
The few remaining containers from Pieces for Destruction, were fired and made more permanent. There is writing on each form, often repeated, over written. The process of writing is, to some degree, free association, free flowing. One thought spilled across one form to another and they were then placed beside each other. The content is further effected and re-imagined as the forms are arranged, set beside each other, touching or not and balanced on each other. Spilling and failing as containers the forms are containers of space and fleeting thoughts at times captured in writing.
Containers – spilling
