THE INTERTWINING (CHIASM)



Somebody Somewhere explores the intertwining of subject and space, through a new body of work created alongside a reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s posthumously published work, The Visible and the Invisible.

It is an ongoing collection of paintings and illustrations, sculptures, printed matter, soundscapes, and moving image.





The Intertwining, oil on linen, 5.9’ x 9.8’




“It is the simultaneous experience of the holding and the held in all orders.


— MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY



The Intertwining, in situ, with selections from The Absence of Field, at Central Saint Martins’s Show One: Art.


︎ The set-up of this body of work at CSM’s White Laboratory is not quite what I envisioned while making it. Due to space restraints, (what I strongly felt like was) selective inclusion, and the lack of general support from the university’s internal team in terms of arranging this “show”, things had to be taken apart, taken in, and rearranged so as to be, at the very least, visible.

︎ (At times the  was not even visible, as some of the pieces and performances scheduled on this day were largely made up of projected films and therefore, required less lighting. For risk assessment, prior to the show, w had submitted a list of work, including medium and mode of presentation, the variety of which was simply not accommodated by the space and equipment provided. I was told about restrictions much too close to the date to think about better alternatives.)

︎ This very website was made and projected beside the work, to provide a bit of grounding and context to something that, to me, looked like it’d been floating in an abstracted space. The intended effect was supposed to be a large sort of sideways canopy, a land mass in motion, moving alongside you. Instead, the piece was brought down very low, requiring the viewers to come closer for a proper look.

︎ I was told it felt like I’d created a space like a basement or a site for some sort of communal gathering. It wasn’t what I’d envisioned for it, but maybe it was not so bad an alternative.

︎ In any case, it exists in a different iteration, perhaps the most optimum one, somewhere else.  In any case, that particular iteration, in which every component goes well and perfectly, would appear very differently to everyone across the board anyway.











“[As] a place is sensed, senses are placed; as places make sense, senses make place.”


— STEVEN FELD,
Senses of Place




NOTHING IN THIS BOOK IS TRUE