Anna Francis conversing with Rich White, Location-Specific Installation Artist.

THE CONVERSATION

AF: So, Rich, before we start – what does it mean ‘location-specific’ and how does that differ from site-specific? And then in practical terms perhaps lets think about your recent piece for the Market Estate Project – how did your location specific way of working turn out?

RW:  Site-specific is more general. A site-specific work is designed to be recreated in a number of different sites e.g. Antony Gormley’s Field series. Location-specific is a work created for a location. The genesis and execution of the work is heavily influenced by this location. ‘Crowd Control’ for the Market Estate Project was the result of researching the history of the location, plus my own feelings and impressions about the place. I discovered that the location had a long history of protests, marches, civil unrest and social gatherings. My response to this was ‘what do we always get, these days, whenever there is a march? Riot police.’ and decided to build a semi-abstract structure reminiscent of lines of sheild-wielding figures of authority.  Following this I sourced materials from the location (they came from the building site that was soon to engulf the estate) and devised building methods based on what I found. The result of this became a quite formibable set of heavily braced barriers.
This is the process I have been using for a number of years now. Each time a different work emerges. The one exception was ‘Capitalyst’ (2009) where I was specifically asked to recreate ‘Vigilance’ (2007) for a festival in Belfast. ‘Vigilance’ was location-specific – influenced by the submarine factory and the proximity of a great source of cardboard boxes. ‘Capitalyst’ was site-specific. The piece was built on-site and to fit that site, but it’s form and method were already decided, it wasn’t influenced by the location. You could argue that there are relevant relationships between sub building and the once-great ship building industry of Belfast but this felt a little tenuous.
‘Crowd Control’ could be recreated elsewhere but I don’t know if it’s impact would be same, and this what is important to me about location-specific work – I try to find something which resonates with the location. The form of the work should evoke something specific to the place.

AF: I can see that the idea of responding to the place’s history and specific identity is important to you. Did it feel wrong then when you worked on ‘Capitalyst’ – did it feel like cheating in some way, or was it less satisfactory?

RW: A little bit. It was still a challenge (which is also important). I had four days to construct the work and it was quite a complicated build due to the curved form crossing through three rooms. The result was satisfying – it produced a different experience to ‘Vigilance’ as people were allowed into the room to explore the work. But it felt a little like cheating. I think it’s still a strong piece of work though – just a little different than how I prefer to work.

AF: As was the case with the Market Estate Project a lot of the things you do only last for a short time, this must put a lot of pressure on documentation. What impact does this have on the making process?

RW: Documentation is always important with my work as it will be the only thing that remains. It doesn’t really have an impact on the making process though. Sometimes I document a little as I go, but I don’t work with this in mind.

I am aware that the finished work has to make a good photo – getting the next commission relies on previous work, so the documentation has to look convincing and show the work looking as strong as possible.
‘Displacement’ (2009) was quite a difficult piece to document as the work created a physical journey. Expressing this journey in two or three images was tricky. I did make a little walkthrough movie for the website though, which I think helps clarify what is happening in the still images.
My work often has two sides – a sort of front, or facade, and a rear were more complex or dynamic things are occurring (Crowd Control at the Market Estate being an example of this). I like to give the viewer something to explore, and having things happening around the back for them to find if they make the effort is a way of giving a reward for looking – I always think there is something satisfying about finding hidden details; I love that feeling of discovery. However, this can be hard to document or express through a single image, and many calls for submissions to shows ask for one image per work which makes it very hard to decide which view of a work to send.
To come back to your question: I make the work to be seen in the flesh – thinking about how the viewer will relate to it, how they might move around it – but keeping a view on how to document it. The work comes first, the photographs second.

AF: and how has the viewer reacted to your work in the past? I remember hearing you talk about the piece in the Greyfriars bus station, and the process of building your intervention. What sort of reactions have you had while making and beyond, and how important is that sort of feedback to you?

RW: Reactions are usually good. I try to make my work quite accessible – in my statement on my website I mention how my work ‘often takes a simple form or pattern of structure which is intended to resonate with the viewer’. The idea is that the form will provoke a response because it has the hint of a familiar function or recognisable image: eg the Sub hull in ‘Vigilance’ or the support structure in ‘Survivalist’ at Greyfriars bus station.

‘Survivalist’ worked particularly well because of the polarizing of opinions about the bus station itself. The bus station is under continued threat of demolition. Many people hate the building – it is a particularly strong example of Brutalist architecture. Yet for this reason many people also love it and want to preserve it. My work was a timber structure that appeared to grow out of an existing office unit in the area beneath the station concourse. The implication behind the structure was that it was a part of the building trying to save itself from demolition. Whilst installing the work (behind a hazard tape barrier and wearing a hi-vis jacket) people would ask what was happening. Sometimes I would tell them it was a sculpture, other times (especially when they asked ‘is the building falling down?’) I would tell them it was to help support the roof. Those that didn’t like the building thought that the idea of it trying to save itself with this little (compared to the building) structure was hilarious. Those that liked the building thought it was quite sweet that it was trying to save itself. Both of these reactions are excellent – I’d managed to make a work which pleased both sides.
I do try to aim for the reaction of a smile (the smile that comes with recognising and understanding) – I want the work to be pleasing – even better if it makes you laugh. As I mentioned before, I like that feeling of discovery, and I try to incorporate this into each work.
Reactions during the building of ‘Crowd Control’ were also amusing. After I’d got so far with the build people started to recognise what was happening – as soon as the blue boards went up the first thing people would ask is ‘is that the police?’ This kind of feedback just lets you know you’re on the right track, that you are getting the intended response. If people start to mention other things (or can’t figure out what’s going on at all) you can adjust the work – add or remove parts – and fine-tune the experience.

AF: I loved ‘Survivalist’ and was in the camp which found the idea of the building trying to rescue itself poignant, sad and futile. Something touching and humane about it.

It sounds then like the reaction from the viewer is quite important, and actually shapes your approach in some way, which is really interesting. Do the dialogues and narratives which happen and unfold sometimes feed into the work too?

RW: They do. Like I said earlier, if people are noticing certain things or mentioning associations that I wasn’t intending I have to change the work in order for it to communicate what I want. On the other hand, themes or references that people notice can add further layers to the work which, now that I am aware of them, I can work on. It’s part of trying to be aware of all the possibilities, messages, themes etc that the work is communicating. I remember back at college, in group crits where we would look at each other’s work and discuss it, we would find all kinds of meanings and associations in people’s work. Some did not like it when you miss-interpreted their work and would counter with ‘it’s not about that.’ I would argue that if other people see that meaning in your work then it is about that for them. It is the job of the artist to ensure that their work communicates exactly what they want it to communicate – and also what they do not.

This was around the time when my work was focused on the question of how art acquires value and meaning. I made a number of works that were deliberately ambiguous and whose purpose was to encourage the viewer to complete the work by going through the process of creating their own narrative for it. Many of these works took the form documentation eg. stills from a video recorded ‘performance’; the recording having been destroyed. I played with the idea of transferring the value of the ‘artwork’ to a secondary item – a book of documentation, the mould that was used to make an object. It all got quite conceptual and eventually I started to feel that I was losing sight of what I wanted to do as an artist. But from that time I have carried with me this discipline of trying to be aware of as many possible readings of my work as I can, and accepting that people will bring something of themselves to the work, and can make associations that are personal to them.
In my current work I try to utilise this by creating forms that are intended to resonate on a subconscious level – to make forms that perhaps seem familiar because they are a part of your everyday life, but here they are presented to you in a new or unexpected way. ‘Vigilance’, in Barrow-in-Furness, was first work where I really attempted this. Barrow is where they assemble the Vanguard class nuclear submarine (of which the Vigilance is one). For some reason the front section of the sub is built elsewhere in the country and transported by road on a huge rolling platform. This massive curved object would glide through the streets of Barrow and into the giant hanger that dominates the skyline. I thought that this was a particularly powerful image and decided that I would build this same curved shape. I felt that it would be a form known to the residents of Barrow – both from the transporter and because so many of the population work for BAe. Placing it in a room as if it were crashing through the ceiling was a comment on the impact of the industry on the town – even though this huge thing has landed on the building, it (the building) has somehow adapted itself to accommodate the shape of the sub. People’s responses to this were very positive. I found that the relationship between the people and the sub was quite relaxed. As I toured the market looking for cardboard boxes people asked what I was doing with it. When I told I was building a submarine they would laugh and make light-hearted jokes about how a cardboard sub would be better than the ones made in the hanger. This kind of reaction was used to full effect for ‘Survivalist’.
The dialogues and narratives continually feed into the work, it is through these interactions that the work develops, and also how I continue to learn about how people respond to the things that are presented to them.

AF: It seems like your practice takes you all over the country, and beyond. You seem to be moving about from one thing to the next all of the time, without much of a break in between things. How does that work – how you manage your time, and do you ever feel like just having a rest?

RW: It seems to go in spurts – particularly recently with the Market Estate Project and now Collusion in Liverpool (where I am as write this) with these falling within a week of each other. Before these my last two projects were back in September, and these also fell within about a week of each other for setting up. If I can commute from home I will (as I did with ‘Survivalist’ in Northampton, ‘Displacement’ in Brighton and The Market Estate Project, with was a short bicycle ride away just off Holloway Road in London). Otherwise I go and stay in a B&B or kip in kind folk’s spare rooms.

Do I seem that busy? It feels to me like there was a nice break in between these pairs of shows.
When I’m not installing my own work I mostly work for a sculptor called Andrew Sabin, and also do some occasional work for Laura Ford. Andrew makes quite large-scale public artworks. My work for him involves everything from making autoCAD drawings for presentations and fabrication, to actually helping to fabricate and install the work. We also did all the steelwork for his house development (a 3 story block with a huge studio/workshop on the ground floor) and now run a little sideline in steelwork for architects projects. As you can imagine, this has fed into my own work. Over the past few years I’ve gained an awful lot of experience of building and architectural methods, a lot of hands-on, on-the-job learning. As my work is quite architectural in appearance it has been quite useful to see how certain things are done – what goes on beneath the skin of a building.
And, yes, I do feel like having a rest sometimes. But not for too long.

AF: Maybe it is from an outsider’s perspective then, but yes, my perception was that you are usually extremely busy. So, like many artists, you have a ‘day job’ to keep things ticking along. It’s great that the ‘job work’ you do feeds in so well to your practice; that seems almost like the traditional German arts education system.

How do you normally get involved in the projects that you do? Do you respond to calls, or do you get asked to be involved in things; or is it a combination? And has that changed over time?

RW: It’s a combination. Early on it was always through responding to calls. Gradually I started to get asked to be involved, but it’s still mainly applying. I’ve had projects through being found via Axis and been asked by people who have seen my work in a previous show. It seems that the more I build up my portfolio with exhibited works the more positive response I get, as well. At the same time, though, I apply for less things – I’m more choosey. When I started out I would apply for anything and everything. It’s something you’ve touched on over on Emily Speed’s conversation, which I left quite a long reply to. She’s talking about how artists should value what they do more highly – not being afraid of asking for payment for their time. Something I totally agree with. As I said, when I started out I would apply for anything – I just wanted to show. Many of these things didn’t offer any money, for some you had to pay for the privilege. I think this has been taken advantage of. There are a lot of artists who can afford to work for free. I’m not really one of them. It feels like a lot of people expect artists to exhibit for free because the work they make is the product, which can be sold, thus providing income. My work doesn’t really fit that scheme. I work more like a builder, I suppose. I need paying for the time I spend installing. And there is no product at the end. There doesn’t really seem to be a system in place for this. It’s entirely down to the gallery/organiser how they choose to structure it; whether they pay artists a fee, or charge them rent for the space. You could argue that I should perhaps change my approach to become more business-like – making ‘products’ – but this just doesn’t really appeal to me. I have to let a lot of interesting projects pass by because there is no money in them. Of course there are always exceptions.

AF: I know what you mean, and I think a lot of artists working in the public realm are in a similar position. I have similar issues within my own work – where it might be performance based, or participatory. I know that my approach has been to just weigh things up, and think sometimes I might do things which are not paid (or sometimes which cost me money – like with the Beauty in the City project – the more successful it gets, the more it costs me!) but in the long term I might learn something really useful, make an important connection with someone or explore a new area of practice – and that is really important to me; it’s not all about the money, so I don’t think you need to change your approach – but we have to pay the rent!

I was interested in the piece of work you mentioned in a talk I saw you give, the one with the old lady in the walls. It seemed to be very different to your usual approach to materials and sculptural form; what can you put that down to?

RW: Sometimes there are long term benefits, yes – contacts, networking etc. And also getting a really good piece of work out of it. The success of my applications to calls relies on the strength of the proposal and the previous work.
The outcome of ‘Displacement’ was a little different to my usual pieces. For that one I followed the story of the work a little more literally because I felt that that approach was required to make it work. The narratives behind ‘Vigilance’ and ‘Survivalist’ were quite simple, and therefore lent themselves to a more abstract or formal approach. The story of Harriet Sylvester (see here: http://www.counterwork.co.uk/index.php/work/displacement/) was quite complex and, I felt, demanded a slightly more theatrical execution in order to reveal the narrative. The result was quite different but the approach was exactly the same: I visited the site, researched, revealed an interesting story/event about the space and responded to it via an architectural installation. The process is driven by the story that I reveal.
I try not to be too restricted with the style of the work, although I’m aware that I do have a bit of a thing for those unusual angles. It usually comes down to what materials I can find – and this is usually timber, boards and/or cardboard. I’m always on the lookout for interesting things to use though.

AF: In the piece you have just completed for Arena, Collusion, you collaborated with another artist. What was that like? How did you find it shaped or changed your approach, and what do you see the benefits of collaborative working as being?

RW:

It was a really good experience. It could have been terrible. I was working with an artist called Brychan Tudor, who I’d not met until a couple of months before the show, and we were put together by Jack Welsh of Arena, who’d never met either of us – he’d only seen our work. Some artists are very precious about their ideas and don’t want other people messing with their ‘vision’, and I suppose there was a chance that one of us could’ve been like that, or there could’ve been a clash of personalities – you never know. However, we all got on really well, we both remained open to ideas and, crucially I think, we also both knew when to press for our idea and when to acquiesce in a reasonable manner. We would listen to what the other wanted to do and then discuss the whys and wherefores. This communication was vital. We both had our areas of expertise – Brychan uses multiple slide projectors to create montages of space, and I build architectural modifications – and we let each other in to those processes.

The approach was similar (I think we both have quite similar approaches anyway) it was the co-ordinating of the approach that differed. When we first met up to look at the space we were both struck by the labyrinthine and security-conscious nature of the building. There are a number of ways to approach the gallery room all involving code-access locks and corridors. And then when you get to space itself it’s quite small (at least small compared to what we’re both usually given – I think this was one of Jack’s masterstrokes. Take two artists who normally use quite a lot of space and put them both in a small room). Brychan’s first thought was ‘let’s make it even smaller’ so I ran with that. Brychan had also taken lots of slides of the space earlier, before a large window had been boarded over. After finding out the building used to be a rope factory I began thinking about twisting the room. I made several autoCAD models where I sliced the room into sections and rotated each piece to see which bits of wall, ceiling and floor would end up where. I sent these to Brychan and Jack for comment and they would reply with suggestions and health and safety access issues respectively. We finally settled on a design where the rotation axis ran along the bottom and side of the length of the room. This allowed for maximum contraction of the space whilst avoiding any H&S issues.

The install was a game of two halves (although uneven in length). The first part was to build the adjusted walls and ceiling. This was my area and it was pretty much left to me to design how this would work, set out the dimensions etc. Brychan is not without skills, however, and we soon settled into a steady working rythym of measuring and cutting timbers and fixing them in position. After this we clad the framework in chipboard and MDF, filled various holes and gave it a few coats of paint. This makes it sound very simple but it wasn’t. This was a lot of work. Fortunately Brychan was very determined – he was the driving force behind us getting it done. When Jack and I were ready to call it a day Brychan would remind us that he needed a specific amount of time to set up the projectors, run through the slides and compose the image. We absolutely had to get the stucture built, filled, sanded and painted before the end of Wednesday so there was the best part of a day to install the projectors before the show opened on the Thursday. We set targets for the three day build which were monumental (or just mental). I got to Liverpool on the Sunday afternoon and set out lines on the floor, walls and ceiling that evening. Brychan, and the timber, arrived at midday on Monday and we worked until about 9pm. We got back at 9am on Tuesday and worked until 2.30am. We started again at about 9am on Wednesday and worked until 4am (we absolutely had to get paint on those walls). We started the final day, the second part of the install, at about 10am. Brychan started to set up projectors while I finished off a few details on the structure. After that I watched Brychan run through a few slides to get a handle on how it would work. We then both started to compose the image – choosing slides and finding relationships and forms that worked with the angled walls. By this point we were working completely in sync. We finished half an hour before the show was due to start at 6pm. We worked out that we did about 50 hours work in just over 3 days.

The benefits of this were that I got to see my work through anothers eyes. Because we were working together on the same piece different questions to those I would normally ask myself would come from Brychan. This is always invaluable – you can learn so much about you work by working through it with another. The other benefit was having someone else there who was as interested and committed to the project as you – it really helps you push yourself and get the best out of the work.

AF: It sounds like a really great working relationship – and its interesting that you have similar approaches in many ways, but work with different materials. This is going to be my last question, so I want to say thank you so much for such an open and enlightening discussion about your practice -  I have really enjoyed it. Last question is, do you see yourself looking for other collaborations based on the successes of this one, and if so, who or what sort of artist/other practitioner would you like to work with; and finally – what’s next for you?

RW: I would collaborate again, but I think it would have to be the right kind of project. I’m not sure I’d actively seek a collaborator but if, like Jack Welsh of Arena did, someone approached me with an interesting idea I’d definitely give it consideration. I’d perhaps like to work with an architect or structural engineer on something large-scale.

Next for me? I’ve got no exhibitions confirmed at the moment. I am part of, as you are too, Ellie Harrison’s Artists’ Lottery Syndicate, which is quite exciting. I’m also currently involved in the perpetual artist’s job of applying for things, filling in forms and sending out images and texts.

*****

TALKING CITY is Anna Francis’ Longhouse Guest Editor project, for March 2010.

Click here to go to the project page.