Wand – Interim Report

Wand. c.1200, from O.N. vondr "rod, switch," [cf. Goth. wandus "rod," M.Swed. vander), from P.Gmc. *wend- "to turn," see wind (v.)]. The notion is of a bending, flexible stick. Cf. cognate O.N. veggr, O.E. wag "wall," O.S., Du. wand, O.H.G. want, Ger. Wand "wall," orig. "wickerwork for making walls," or "wall made of wattle-work" (an insight into early Gmc. domestic architecture). Magic wand is attested from c.1400 and shows the etymological sense of "suppleness" already had been lost.

This work brings together some of the approaches that I have been involved with over time: Sculpture (found objects/installation), Performance (within and without the gallery); conversation as art and text. I’ve adopted the form of the exhibition to hold a range of works together that exist interdependently under the title. The work revolves, on one level, around the notion of walking; by myself past and present and also by those of visitors to Plymouth Art Centre. It exists as an enquiry into the potential for a Radical Antiquarianism (http://www.radicalantiquarianism.com).

In the lower room a range of objects, guidebooks and documents refer to earlier walk-works that I have made which I refer to as manoeuvres. These all utilise the quotation as a device to wrench the viewer/walker back and forth through various historical, contemporary and imaginative contexts across the line of a route walked. The exhibition of trace elements is one which I may have at one time resisted as many may have associated this with an over willingness of a performer to a) blatantly commodify their activities, and b) leave their practice open to mythology. However, a performance always has an objecthood, even if this lies at the conceptual level of memory. Furthermore, the entire development of antiquarianism into the formal discourse of History relies upon the subject (antiquarian/ curious party) talking to the artefact. These objects therefore exist in-concert as an ongoing reliquary.

In the upper room a dais offers a horde of over 50 walking sticks for inspection - each propped against the wall. Although the basic form-function is common to all (a generic stick) there is a broad stylistic range including the familiar hip-height stick with bent handle; canes with pommels; horn-handled shafts and shoulder length staffs bearing carved animal heads. This sculptural cameo has been punctuated by a performance, also entitled Wand.

The performance Wand involved the distribution of used postcards among a group of 14. Working with each individual, a series of duet readings and card exchanges were produced involving participants and myself. The set of postcards held by myself had been prepared with quotations and were un-franked. All of the postcards depicted a range of landscapes across the British Isles. Many of the quotations took the form of a fable and alluded to the range of animals represented among the sticks (horse, fox, hound, dog, rabbit, owl, badger, ram, squirrel), to the white chalk giant(s) cut into Plymouth Hoe (now beneath the Citadel), to the battle between Corinaeus and Gogmagog and to the discovery of chalk figures discovered elsewhere in the English landscape. The group then selected a walking stick from a bundle, bound with red ribbon that I had introduced into the space prior to the performance. Whilst participants collected their stick, I placed my left arm in a red sling and invited them to return after 2 weeks to engage in a ‘walkshop’ with me.