Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Take Away, The Outside World, Exhibition


I've put in a photograph to Outside World in an exhibition called Take Away. It's the sort of exhibition I like where you get to take away an other artists work at the end of the show.

artists were asked to respond to the theme The Outside World and I chose one of my photographs of the Olympic site for the reasons I wrote about below.

The exhibition is at The Outside World, 44 Redchurch Street, E2 7DP open Friday 13th 6-9pm until Sunday 15th 12-7pm.

What Interests me about the ideas of space and outside space here in one of my images taken around the Olympic site, is both that of the changing nature of space and its enduring qualities, space after all is what contains all things.

The Olympic site is changing the environment/outside space in East London significantly, and at the same time there is a need to win hearts and minds for the games, to change our internal space.The space will also be a site of corporate business and advertising creating a mediated outside space that seeks to influence this internal world/space we have.

There is potentiality in the Olympic site, which I see represented by the light at the end of the tunnel in the photograph. The blue colour of the hoarding adds to this symbolism. The lone dark figure also struck me as symbolic of the limited nature of that potentiality for the actual community in the east End. How many of us will really benefit from the games?

The reality of living within a massive building site with its hoardings, fences, closed roads and footpaths and no go areas is also one of the reasons for taking the photograph. It is the day to day experience of being in this particular outside space.

Yet change is inevitable, nothing remains the same in our outside world/space. What's constant could be called space itself, as space contains all things as they change, but does not change itself. Reflection on the nature of outside space inevitably leads to the nature of inside space, they are both connected.

What I see in the space outside of me, what we see in the space outside of ourselves, is in part a reflection of what we see in our inside/inner space. as an artist and Buddhist this interplay between outside and inside worlds is a large part of my practise.

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