Polite Notice
2024.
Sculpture, large scale digital print
Part of an exhibition at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities in Cambridge as part of the Expanded Librarian research project led by Beverley Carruthers (London College of Communication) and Wiebke Leister (Royal College of Art). The year-long project is the result of a series of collaborative artists’ workshops investigating different approaches to what the figure of the Expanded Librarian can be, and to add to the existing discourses of text & image – theoretically, methodologically and as artistic strategy. Also an accompanying symposium on 9th March 2024.
Statement: Expanded Librarianship is to be a small child at a buffet giving random items an exploratory lick, assured that something good will be unearthed. It’s roaming shelves, flicking pages, consuming or spitting out. Each, and every, library holds an array of interpretations, possibilities, and a whole host of material for our disposal. Yet, too, it is scary. I am also free to interpret or misinterpret, working from a position of knowing relatively little and (inadvertently) falsely concluding and filing away. The chief ‘librarians’ shelved me into Interpretations; and our group examined connections between our ideas on this and on translation. This led to my work deviating into areas that seemed a better fit with our ongoing discussions.
I was drawn to an archive languishing in my ‘stacks’ – a collection of ‘polite notices’ built up over five years. These seem, to me, to be such a strange, idiosyncratic, form of signage. With interpretation and translation in mind, I delved in, and researched politeness.
Politeness conventions vary internationally, but also evolve over time. Is our current collective ability improving or declining? Do we treat each other politely? In a truly considerate way? And not one masked in passive aggression? How do we deal with the assumptions that are made by everyone who is apparently ‘not judging but …’?
A sign on the vitrine declares: ‘Don’t assume to know me’ (a universal problem). Deeper inside a second layer of perspex is a jumble of ad hoc signs, erected in sand: a mess of my thoughts. There is, ostensibly, a tide of rules of politeness to comply with. But could I just say or ask anything I want, and relieve myself of responsibility, if I precede it with ‘Polite Notice’? Clearly not. Equally my work seeks to make the ludicrousness of ‘polite notices’ apparent.
Sculpture, large scale digital print
Part of an exhibition at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities in Cambridge as part of the Expanded Librarian research project led by Beverley Carruthers (London College of Communication) and Wiebke Leister (Royal College of Art). The year-long project is the result of a series of collaborative artists’ workshops investigating different approaches to what the figure of the Expanded Librarian can be, and to add to the existing discourses of text & image – theoretically, methodologically and as artistic strategy. Also an accompanying symposium on 9th March 2024.
Statement: Expanded Librarianship is to be a small child at a buffet giving random items an exploratory lick, assured that something good will be unearthed. It’s roaming shelves, flicking pages, consuming or spitting out. Each, and every, library holds an array of interpretations, possibilities, and a whole host of material for our disposal. Yet, too, it is scary. I am also free to interpret or misinterpret, working from a position of knowing relatively little and (inadvertently) falsely concluding and filing away. The chief ‘librarians’ shelved me into Interpretations; and our group examined connections between our ideas on this and on translation. This led to my work deviating into areas that seemed a better fit with our ongoing discussions.
I was drawn to an archive languishing in my ‘stacks’ – a collection of ‘polite notices’ built up over five years. These seem, to me, to be such a strange, idiosyncratic, form of signage. With interpretation and translation in mind, I delved in, and researched politeness.
Politeness conventions vary internationally, but also evolve over time. Is our current collective ability improving or declining? Do we treat each other politely? In a truly considerate way? And not one masked in passive aggression? How do we deal with the assumptions that are made by everyone who is apparently ‘not judging but …’?
A sign on the vitrine declares: ‘Don’t assume to know me’ (a universal problem). Deeper inside a second layer of perspex is a jumble of ad hoc signs, erected in sand: a mess of my thoughts. There is, ostensibly, a tide of rules of politeness to comply with. But could I just say or ask anything I want, and relieve myself of responsibility, if I precede it with ‘Polite Notice’? Clearly not. Equally my work seeks to make the ludicrousness of ‘polite notices’ apparent.