Dainty fingers not delicate enough
blade not precise enough
eyes not sharp enough
to sculpt the scattered crumbs of a life.
Glue sticky with dust spit
magnified by twenty-four
specks of hair and skin sit thick.
Silverfish gnaw pinpricks in the tissue
moth holes in fabric.
This thin paper edifice
could crumple.
And even if I had the skills
to craft it all I couldn’t.
I have forgotten the tiny hairpins
and coins and keys and wires and bracelets
and scattered cushions and receipts
and hidden packets of cigarettes.
If I could retrieve these lost
fragments
it would not bring you back.
But I will sit here quietly
and cut tiny pieces of paper
to recreate the space
in which you felt so present.
Let me linger in this quiet a little longer
Let me sit in this quiet a little longer is an intimate installation comprised of twelve 1:24 scale bedrooms, handmade out of mountboard and paper, embedded in a false wall and lit through miniature windows using LEDs and coloured liquid to give the illusion of different times of day. The ‘rooms’ are embedded within this wall at differing heights, depths, and orientations to give a multiplicity of perspectives, and the awkward heights and small apertures through which they are viewable, such as the open door, put the audience in the position of both witness and voyeur. A back-projected animation of the same room slowly drawing and erasing itself in and out of existence plays on a perpendicular wall.
This work explores the ways we ascribe presence and meaning to the objects of a bedroom. The repetition of these fragile paper spaces alludes to the meticulous seeking of a truthful memory – to find presence in overwhelming absence. The contrast between the pristine façade and the chaos of the back, both visible to the audience, alludes to the tension between public and private. The rooms straddle the two, somewhere between construction and preservation. Similarly, the film focuses on this unreliable reconstruction. Traces of these objects and their movement collect on the paper, persisting past the point of erasure. The light through the window is an essential element of both works, providing a metaphor for time and reflection.
The final drawing for the animation was shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Working Drawing Award 2023