Lost & Found, 1993
Pearce Institute Govan Glasgow & Springburn Local History Museum and North Glasgow Collage, UK.
Medium :- Galvanised Steel, Copper wire, Teaspoons, Buttons, Theatrical Lights, 39 Frame Photographs, Printed Material, Cardboard Glass Jars and Sound System.
Dimensions :- Various
Arriving as a stranger in Glasgow, Atkinson.Davidson ponders how to locate herself in the city and reflects on the changing identity of its neighbourhoods. The artists finds her way around, and connects with people, by tracing a six-mile route across the city linking two similar yet distinct communities - areas which lost their heavy industry (ship building and locomotive building). The artist seeks the involvement of everyone along the route by asking to borrow an everyday item: a button or a teaspoon. Collecting these items Atkinson.Davidson touches peoples lives. Asking within shops, as a non-customer, brings a sense of other-worldliness to the project. Although in daily use, and also easily lost, these objects have meaning, some even special significance. The artist, as an alchemist, transforms the collected objects into a powerful, symbolic work. Atkinson.Davidson collects 1314 teaspoons and 480 button collections and forms two sculptures, one at each end of her route. The spoons are transformed into an elegant 16ft diameter chandelier, a beautiful circle hanging in the vast space of the Pearce Institute, embracing the lives of the people along the route. At North Glasgow College the buttons are put into jars stacked up to suggest part of an iron water tower, reflecting the historical locus of settlement. Placed in front of memorial window, the tower is flooded with, and refracts, light to become a memorial itself. The return of the objects is one of the most important parts of the work, leaving only a powerful memory of the collective activity, the people and lost identities of the city.
Sponsors :- Glasgow City Council Arts Development Fund, Glasgow Museums, Scottish Art Council, Pearce Institute, North Glasgow College, Springburn Museum Trust, Govan Initiative, Strathclyde Regional Council, MI Technologies, Capital Copiers, United Glass, Epilepsy Association of Scotland, Rowats Foods, Computerland, Skylight International Ltd, United Distillers, Accolade & Montgomery Movers
