Investigative process is always fundamental to my projects. To me it’s more than a developmental pursuit. It’s art in action, whether it’s experimenting in my studio, on the net gathering research material for a project archive, or on the streets collecting the thoughts of individuals – it is art happening.
When I’m in this mode I am enacting a role or a persona of sorts. And since the initiation of a long-term project in the form of an ideological initiative of which I am the protagonist and paragon, my art and life practice are becoming increasingly symbiotic.
My Seedpod project brought this to a whole new level, and it has felt like I have taken the leap that was needed, but had been hesitating to take. It’s amazing what can happen in two weeks, especially with a mentor like Jude Anderson who is astute on finding the crux of her protégé’s concept and prompting a plan to action. In my two weeks I embarked on a journey of ambitiously connecting with people, inviting them to self-reflect, interact, join a dialogue, and even commit to a membership.
To do this I had to jump the hurdle of self-doubt and embrace my role as protagonist. And, being able to ‘get on with it’ has also paved the way for real discipline in my art-life practice. As First Member of my initiative The League for Human Integrity I have principles to practice through my art, my everyday life, and on a metaphysical level. I have to make things lots of things happen and inspire a now growing community of individuals who are invested in what the project is striving for.
On reflection now, I think that the dedicated research process that I carried out for each of my projects armed me with the confidence to present works that took bold creative and conceptual leaps. Through this research I would build a store of material to draw from that allowed my works to have multi-layered meanings and divergent perceptual forms. Now it is as though all the investigation that went into those projects has fortified a solid platform for Integrity and my role as First Member. A commitment to research as process has proved to be the most profound impetus in the evolution of my practice to what it is today.
Seedpod was the conduit for this process of realisation, and I thank you Jude for being my protagonist when I needed it most.
