3... 2... 1... coming ready or not!

While walking home from the shops on Saturday afternoon I passed by the school at the top of my street. In the playground I saw two wee-ish boys running towards the rain shelter where they crouched down in opposite corners behind pillars. I thought it was a bit of a strange thing to do and naturally thought the worst, that maybe they had robbed a pensioner or mugged someone for their Ipod? It was only when i saw another kid hiding down beside a wheelie bin quickly followed by a fourth who wandered out into the middle of the ground looking a bit lost that i realised they where playing hide and seek... phew!

But the reason I'm including this is, I've never seen the game from that perspective before,the only other times I've payed attention is when I've been playing, but walking past I could see all of the game at once. I saw the hiders and the seeker and the inevitable mad dash.

Seemed like it was a perfect little illustration of the nooks and crannies you can find when you need to and got me thinking that maybe it would be a nice idea to mark these in some way. All those places that you walk past everyday but that could be turned into a prefect hidy-hole if only you knew it.

This reminded me of some street Art that caught my imagination years ago. Its by an Artist called Louise, she works with her partner Eugene and together they create all sorts of magical things. What was in my mind was some work Louise made by knitting objects and then casting them in plaster, she says of them:

'my world is filled with naivety, in a lonely kind of way. My little creatures play hide and seek, but mostly never end up being found. My only goal is to offer a short, intimate moment to the happy few who notice a little Louise creature in the hussel of the city.'

Unfortunately I couldn't find any available images online to show but if you go to their website under the heading of Personal work and click on L-Street you'll find some really beautiful images. It's well worth having a look at the rest of their work too, I've completely fallen in love with it the Eugene and Louise bakery in particular.

Things to keep you warm at night

I was told the other day about a traditional blanket coat that's used a lot in north Africa by travellers crossing through the desert. Its designed to be almost all the shelter you could wish for, warm at night, cool in dazzling heat and thick enough to keep out the bugs and sand. The travellers practically live in them, so i heard? But try as i might I've not been able to find any information on line about them.

This got me thinking about Nomadic lifestyles, people who travel as a culture almost without any choice because it's just what they do. So, for fear of wasting anymore time I began looking a little at some of these cultures. The First that sprang to mind was Mongolia and the Yurts that some people live in. I didn't realise till now just how many cultures use these portable homes from Russia all the way to Pakistan. Passed down from father to son for generations, I read that they can be dated with the build up of smoke stains on the roof from the years upon years of cooking fires. They seem to be quite a big business these days too, springing up in places you wouldn't think of. They look a little bit like upside down nests to me the way the wooden lattice of the roof is described and also the way its covered with the fleece of the sheep that are tended by the families.

I suppose the Scottish version, although its not an accurate equivalent, would be a bothy. Its temporary in that its used for short period of times by many different people, so it becomes communal but also isolated which is a nice contradiction. It's very basic providing only shelter and not much else, in fact I'm not sure if it wouldn't be more homely in a tent? My favourite thing about Bothy culture is the etiquette, as listed in the link, the fact that there are unwritten rules that you are expected to adhere to. The only way to know them is to be told by someone with more experience than you, that passing down of tradition and information and even location is what makes these things special for me.

Wasp story

At the weekend my mum told me a story about a time in the 70's when she was on a beach in Spain. While she was sunbathing she was watching a little wasp. It was flying backwards and forwards from where there was a skirt lying beside her. This went on for hours before she decided to investigate. When she did lift up the material to find out what the wasp found so interesting she discovered that it was in the process of building itself a little nest. She said it was quite a heavy, navy wool so maybe it made a good shelter from the sun.

Ode to Bill Oddy

I seem to be making a habit out of bird watching now. One of the Birds seems to have come back to the nest, I've no idea wether its the same mother bird again or one of the grown up babies but I hope it's got some eggs to sit on.... I'd love a picture of the nest with eggs.

With this new interest in nature awareness I'm thinking of getting myself a Bee Box. I have wanted one for a long while so its not strictly a matter of research but i do think it would be facinating to watch a Bee making a home for itself in a little wooden box. Providing a home for something also seems like an interesting thing to do.

studio dens and fabric nests

I thought it was about time i gave building a den a shot, so tried it out this afternoon in the studio. I brought in some fabrics and set up camp under my table

It wasn't exactly time consuming to build but it was fun to snuggle down underneath it. It felt a bit silly at first but as soon as i was underneath with the material drawn across it seemed like it didn't matter anymore. The feeling was almost immediate to, which was surprising, lying down and peering out through the cracks in the sheets i felt like no one could know i was there. It was really pleasant.

I also thought i'd try making different kinds of nests under the table with the left over fabric, because id always rather have a home made of c omfortable material than twigs and mud or bits of newspaper. They turned out to be less like nests and more like hammocks or little fabric wombs. There are some birds who make womb like nests but these reminded me more of something like a kangaroo pouch.

Nest building attempt one

Last night I gave nest building a go for the first time. I'm not sure its an exactly successful nest, i wouldn't trust any baby anythings in there. But it was defiantly good to try out.

Its made from newspaper strips, thicker twisted ones to form the frame, thinner strips for weaving and whats really just spit balls to pad out the inside (Couldn't bring myself to make the spit balls in the traditional way, so i just went for the more hygienic papier mache option instead). It took at least an hour and a half to make, with a lot of complaining about how rubbish it looked in between.

The process reminded me of some things we've spoken about in other projects, things like ritual acts and feminine traditions. It felt quite therapeutic, when I wasn't complaining, it made me think of all the caring acts mothers do to prepare for their children like crocheting a blanket, knitting clothes and socks or setting up a room. Even the fact that now that its finished and i think it's a bit rubbish and not up to scratch makes me think of how mum's never really feel like they've done a good enough job no matter how hard they try. So i suppose it's fitting that it could definitely be better put together.

The extremley informative Protect and Survive manual

I found the extremely helpful Protect and Survive manual while searching for other things in the Mitchel Library. As it says on the front cover "This book tells you how to make your home and your family as safe as possible under nuclear attack" and i thought it was bound to have some information about h ow to build a very safe nest. It's a government pamphlet which was given out in the mid 80's due to the apparent threat of nuclear attack. Its full of all sorts of useful information about where to build your fall out shelter and how to build one from books and bits of doors?

A handy lists of supplies to keep handy for the 48hours of radiation that follows a bomb drop , it includes such things as: Torches, spare batteries, matches, toilet articles, change of clothes, first aid, dry sand, Vaseline , notebooks for messages, cleaning materials, toys and a mechanical clock. It tells you how to store drinking water safely, how to go to the bathroom, how to protect against fire, how to deflect the blast by painting the windows white and, of course, how to bury your dead.

To be honest I found it all pretty comical to read over. It seemed so ludicrous and the advice given is pretty laughable , things like... "If you are in the open and cannot get home within a few minutes lie flat (in a ditch) and cover the exposed skin of the head and hands" the little illustration shows you how to cover your head with a jacket. I find it really hard to believe that this will save you in a nuclear attack? but it is a government approved handbook?

The further into the booklet i got though the sadder it seemed. This illustration in particular makes the people look so pathetic.

I suppose I can find it laughable because I'm lucky enough never to have experienced this kind of threat. And if you are living this day to day when the government tells you to do something to keep yourself safe, with no other option, there's a good chance your going to do what they say. It does seem an awful lot like scaremongering at best and at worst miss information for the hopeless.

Anyway, it was definatly an intresting read, I'm glad I came a cross it and i think it c overs quite a few of the points in my research too.

Dens, Forts, Nooks and Crannies

Having a think about what I originally had in mind for this project, I got to remembering to dens and hidy-holes i used to make when i was little. I'm pretty sure we've all made the same kinds, although I was very lucky as my mum was suprisingly understanding when it came to turning the furniture upside down. Those ones where my favorites, when I was allowed to turn the living room upside down and make my own imaginary house within it. On more average days it was just a plain old bed sheet over the kitchen table, very snug.

Or making a nook under a hedge in the back court... that was particularly good fun as there where always rocks and tree roots to use as furniture. The backgarden den also has more in commen with the nests I've been looking at and the thought of making a little woven enclosure out and about somewhere is quite exciting. like a nest for memories.

I'm still looking for some more detailed information, on artists or otherwise, about why all children do this and why it is such a comforting thing? I think it could be an interesting thing to take further, or just to understand a little better for myself.

Still Human Still Here

while looking for some more information as a follow up to the last post, I found this campaign from Amnesty International, there is also a short documentary on the subject from Nick Broomfield on this link

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?categoryID=10398

Still Human Still Here is campaigning to end the destitution of refused asylum seekers. It just really makes me wonder where do you go when you literally have nothing? The stories you hear are far from typical stories of homelessness, if there is such a thing, what do you do when you've lost everything that we usually use to define ourselves: your family, your friends, any possessions, security, all your rights as an individual and any sense of familiar culture?

I've taken some books from the library on the subject which I've still to read and also asked for some more information on this and similar campaigns from Amnesty. This is not really the route I wanted to take with the project so I'm going to keep exploring with some more light hearted research and I also don't want to feel like I'm make light of something so serious but it is something which interests me.

paraSITE

http://www.michealrakowitz.com

Micheal Rokowitz's paraSITE is the other end of a similar scale. This work is creating what I would consider to be basic human rights and needs rather than just purely addressing comfort and security, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly secure about the inflatable shelters.

It makes me wonder how different your concept of a home becomes when your stripped of almost everything you know?

There's no place home *click click click*

What is it that makes a home?
What do you need to make yourself feel settled and secure?
I'm not sure what this means for me, it seems obvious to say that it is made from a feeling rather than anything else but that doesn't seem to be specific enough for the things I've been looking at. I'm taken with the idea that once you leave home, the place you grew up in, that there's no longer a home for you to return to. The little spell of comfort that you had is broken and it becomes up to you to recreate it for yourself and most people, i imagine, use things to make this real again.

It reminds me of something i read about Simone De Beauvoir a long time ago, it was a passage in Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. He was writing about how she moved around so much and yet still made every place she stayed seem like home. She did this by carrying with her suitcases full of her most important possessions, scarves, books, pictures and trinkets. At the time I thought this seemed like quite a romantic idea but looking back at it now it seems a little bit sad. To make everywhere you go exactly the same seems limiting to me, not only are you missing out on experiencing the new you are also never properly recreating or capturing the place you miss?

Pepe Espaliú

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFo--kt973I&feature=related

The one piece i was particularly interested in by this artist is called "The Neck" unfortunately i couldn't find an image of it anywhere. It was a performance made in a garden where a octagonal platform was built onto a tall tree which could be viewed from a nearby window. Everyday for eight days the artist climbed a ladder to the platform, removed one of his eight pieces of clothing and walked an increasing number of times around the trunk of the tree. As the days went on and the articles of clothing built up it began to form a kind of nest. It was based around idea of being able to approach god through ritual activity involving divestment of goods and above all preconceptions. This ritual ceremony was an empty gesture, which echoed the purifying and punishing rituals of medieval monks and hermits.

I like the private and public aspects of this performance. The way that the act is a solitary one made for quite deeply personal reasons but that it is open for others to see. A quote from the book i read on Pepe Espaliu put this nicely "As Bueys said, the only way to improve and perhaps to heal is to become aware and show ones wounds."

A lot of the work reflected this idea. The artist suffered from HIV and Aids and used his experiences of life with illness to create art... "the art made through his illness was a search for elusive forms and to capture emotional and existential states."

"The empty cage is not the prison but the body itself"

Another series of performances that seek to capture these elusive emotional states, took place with the artist being carried down the street by two members of the public. taking reference in the bible stories of Jesus carrying peter across the water. It makes a childhood game into a meaningful communication, where the carrier becomes the carried.

That Nesting Instinct

To start this project i've begun looking at ideas of saftey and security. It began when two weeks ago i found a nest in the hedge outside my bedroom window, it contained two chirrping baby birds and a mother bird who looked awfully unhappy to see me sticking my nose into thier home. She snuggled down on the little chicks so all you could see peering from underneath was one little beak nuzzling about. The chicks have since flown away and the nest seems to be abandoned but it still looks beautifull, especially as it seems secret. I dont think anyone else would know that its there?

Trying to build a replica little nest really appeals to me i found these instructions: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/robin/BuildNest.html

1. Find a suitable building site
The site should be protected from sun, wind and rain. It can be anywhere from ground to treetop in height; the site must be on something sturdy enough to anchor the nest securely in place. You don't want your nest to fall off!
Your nest should also be very close to a good feeding spot so you can easily find worms while keeping an eye on it, and it shouldn't be too far from water.
Choose a spot that is hard for predators to see. Remember, you and your eggs and babies will be sitting here for the next 5 weeks, so be careful to pick a spot that's safe, cool, and comfortable.
2. Gather materials
Grass fibers: Collect about 350 dead grasses and twigs that are about 6 inches long. (The pile should weigh about 135 grams.)
Soft mud: After a soaking rain, collect mouthfuls of mud in your beak and travel back and forth to your nest site a few hundred times. (If you happen to be a person rather than a robin, you might substitute your hands for a beak to collect the mud, but don't forget that it takes a pair of robins hundreds of visits to build the nest!)
3. Build!
Weave the grasses together, cementing them to each other and to the supporting branch or windowsill with mud.
Next, use your tummy to shape the nest into a perfect baby cradle.
Finally, line the inside with the softest grasses and hairs you can find so the eggs will stay warm and not get pierced by any twigs or sharp grass edges. The nest must be tight and snug enough to cradle the eggs and hold in your warmth, but large enough to hold four or even five BIG nestlings.

This idea of sneaking yourself into a small space to keep yourself and the people you love safe got me thinking about how we all do this everyday. We make safe spaces for ourselves in our homes, bedrooms, cars, relationships, clothing, even in our own personal space and the bounderies we create. I noticed how we do this at the start of every project in the studio, we all select our little bit of wall in whats really just a big white box and make it our own, fill it with personal things important to us and what we are exploring. its a comforting thing to do and i think there are times when we all feel insecure and want to curl ourselves up into a tiny corner.

still to decide

im still trying to decide wether to make a book or a blog for this part of the project. So ive decided to try and do both as i go along, taking things from my sketchbook to include here and then maybe taking things from this blog to make a book... fingers crossed!