365 DAYS INSTAGRAM PROJECT (365 WORKS)
BŚA PROJECT SPACE BŚA BYRON SCHOOL OF ART
122 Dalley Street. MULLUMBIMBY N.S.W.
APRIL 5 - 23 2019
The Installation that covers the walls of the BSA Project Space is made up of 365 works created over 365 Days. The result is a culmination of a disciplined daily practice of making an artwork every day, incorporating a multi-media process, combining Social Media, Technology, and Art. Instagram is an important component in the creation of the project, as it is an ideal format for artists to display work. These works were posted daily and exposed to an audience of followers, and it is ongoing and still remains visible, in the Instagram feed. Posting the work daily creates another opportunity of exhibiting art , by presenting the Project to an audience that can see and follow as the work evolves over 365 Days. It creates interest in the work, as the followers look for what might be created next. Each day is different and presents a spontaneous creation pertaining to the day of the artist. Instagram is still contributing to the Project as the works here at the BSA Project Space are installed in the gallery space in the same order as posted on Instagram. The idea of having an instant viewing audience daily is inspirational for the artist and propels the work to continually be created and shared. The artist is assessing the overall look as the work evolves. Each day photographing the work and to ensure a good image, prior to posting is paramount,and envisioning how the final installation might look for a future exhibition.
The work is made from a diverse range of found things. It is an investigation of the ordinary from the perspective of the "found" be it the rejected, the disposable, the overlooked that becomes an intrinsically part of the creative process and through the method of Assemblage the work is created.. All discovered things create vital possibilities that are transcended through a daily practice of living the everyday aesthetically. Allowing spontaneity, freedom, chance encounters and the unexpected, are of utmost importance of the working process. All discovered things create vital possibilities that transcend their original manufacture to be recontexturalised and elevated into a work of art. What transpires in making the work is accidentally miraculous, an engagement with a new kind of anthropology, an immersion in the pleasures of popular culture, or a meditation on what happens unexpectedly. It simply is a means of seeing everyday objects in a new light. As Henri Lefebvre, a theorist on this subject, notes the "concept of everydayness (can) reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary." At a philosophical level the celebration of the everyday has oppositional and dissident overtones, offering a voice to the silenced and proposing possibilities for change.
Marlene Sarroff’s thoughts on her process in assemblages of found objects made an impression on me in how, through art practice, aesthetics can be used as a vehicle for mindful living in our daily lives. Through finding the manufactured discards and mindful personal response, creative process takes place using simple assembling of disparate found pieces. This body of work follows a strict parameter as described in Marlene's text. In this process, this project has humbly and deeply encapsulated art practice as an ethos for life lived in a mindful way.
Visually, the artworks exemplify art making incorporating materials with trace of the 'intelligence of manufacturing' with technologies of our time. It is important for Marlene that the found materials are not 'interfered with'. The integrity of the found materials is to be kept intact as much as possible. The outcome and process are dictated by the materials' characteristics. This in itself is a way of relating with respect in one's day to day encounters, being with another being or our environment.
Our environment is mostly surrounded with manufactured materials. The discards appearing in Marlene's works are office stationery, foam materials for packaging consumer products, advertising off cuts, rubber mats, factory discards. The emphasis of creativity and making of this body of artwork is shifted from the making to the aesthetic 'response' and deep appreciation of the materials followed with visual recognition of creative possibilities to repurpose the found pieces into a artworks. The result is a 'mash' of the 'intelligence of manufacturing' of our time and Marlene's aesthetic judgments. On that basis, 'of the time' is intrinsic in the expressions of these works.
Curator :Anie Nheu