Anastasia: past/future similar/different

Past work : What / How / Why

This work is an intervention across the threshold of an exhibition

The entrance to the group exhibition ‘Temporary Status’ is signalled by press releases on a plinth and a placard at eye height. The show is taking place within a university institution on the occasion of a masterclass with a curator from Chisenhale gallery, London.

In the white frame of a doorway a shiny black curtain conceals the show from view. The curtain is hung diagonally, so that an individual could step into the doorway (but not past the curtain) and stand in corner of the room. The fabric is covered with tiny, flat, shimmering discs - which reflect the corridors institutional strip light. Darkened space at the top, and the gathered excess of material at the bottom seal any light from the preceding corridor entering the room. The fabric is heavy and made of some sort of lycra material - so it bounces when you lift and spread it to make your way into the room.

I obtained the materials from a fabric shop in the west end and a local DIY store. Simple construction included folding and sewing the top edge of the fabric, so that it could hang, gathered from the aluminium pole. I measured and cut the edge of the pole so that each end was flush to each wall (around 45 deg).

Making work on my BA at Goldsmiths was often organised around 1. convenors where we presented and discussed the work and 2. Group shows which were happening outside of the college. For this ‘show’ around 12 of us had decided to frame a ‘masterclass’ with curator Polly Staple by putting on an exhibition of especially made works.

For this Untitled work I was interested in the idea of the threshold - both physically and metaphorically. I wanted to construct an intervention which was both a theatrical style ‘backdrop’ and a concealing ‘backstage’ curtain to engage with the idea of internal/external display of students works within the institution and the ‘status’ surrounding whether this was a public/private event.

Relation to prior work? Around this time (2010) much of my work was based around the perception of reality and subtle elements of performativity. I made sculptures from materials with illusionistic flatness or unexpected weight (welded steel that looked like folded paper) and tried to think about how these might perform as characters or how I could change the space to encourage viewers to be characters within the work. Prior to this ‘intervention’ I was going through the motions of making physical works where my processes were influenced by tropes of art history, so whereas previously I might have welded steel and painted it a unifying colour - copying modernist sculptors, here I was still interested in my own themes of perception and performativity but reference wise I was moving on a few decades and thinking about institutional critique.

What scene produced this work? A very institutional educational scene - in London. The work was produced with interaction and dialogue in mind. For me, in 2010 making an object began with formal concerns and then was consciously situated in a social space. This ‘intervention’ was based around the artist/curator relationship and the idea that my work would contextualise other works in the room. I did not want to settle on a medium or one aesthetic tone but was encouraged to explore each work in its own right. This work existed outside of a ‘developed’ artist practice - i.e. I had at this stage only ever made work as a student.

[Steve asks: were you a content provider for the curator? or was it a dialogue?]

What was the broader cultural context of this time? Wars continued in Afghanistan. Gordon Brown stepped down. David Cameron… Tuition fees had risen, arts council funding was cut by 40%. Communist red shirts in Thailand occupied parts of Bangkok and burnt down a mall. I was an art student with student loan and grant from the government. At Goldsmiths we were finding squatted spaces and putting on shows with titles like 'New Fictions', ‘Heterotopia’ and ‘Anonymat’.