FLAT 120 - forget-me-not
Sew the Sofa - International Women Day
Karen Vaughan
SEE EYE 23rd - 24th March 2007
This work, from the perspective of a stranger to the area, acknowledges
the landscapes, empty homes, and discarded objects of Abbeyview
as the bearers of unknown histories that took place in the artists’
absence. It takes the form of three framed panels, presented in
a room within flat 120 Allan Crescent. The pieces utilise a selection
of second-hand clothes bought from local charity shops in Dunfermline,
and the frames are made from salvaged oak wood from an old oak door.
In this way discarded objects are given a new meaning, seeking to
form a coherent picture from scattered points.
The process of salvaging, or ‘gleaning’, is recurrent
throughout the work, and is apparent in the panels’ thematic
content, being sourced from everyday and unassuming scenes from
the immediate area. These include a view from the window of one
of the flats, a piece of graffiti from one of the window panels,
and a depiction of leaves lying on the ground.
To most viewers the lives that inspired these scenes, and the discarded/recycled
clothes that form the material basis of the work, are completely
anonymous - yet they still hold many stories both imagined and perhaps
known. The work is dependent upon our own personal interpretations,
yet offers a strong link to ancestry, cultural identity, strength,
re-growth and restoration. It can also be seen as a meditation on
the transience of material existence, and the dismantling of decades
of social life, which the regeneration process has brought into
effect.
The unpicking of clothes in order to sew all the different panels
of fabric back together again - creating a blank canvas –
can be seen as a striking metaphor for the issues and concerns presently
affecting the Abbeyview community. Similarly, the reinterpretation
of forms that are generally perceived as being destructive, such
as graffiti, gives them a new social connotation: when presented
as embroidery they become not destructive marking, but artwork instead.
Chris Hladowski
Chris
Hladowski
Hanna
Tuulikki
Michael
Wilson
Karen
Vaughan
