NO HOT ASHES

Proposed Triumphal Archway

How should we remember the 20th century? Life in the city, wheelie bins: our own personal time capsusule on every street. We just love making holes and filling them up again.

Let the design echo the circumstance at the municiple tip. This is our vector in the big mess of History.

NOTE TO FUTURE SELVES: Please choose the object you want to be remembered by carefully, we already take up so much room.

“Nothing from nothing leaves nothing”

My working methods have always been intentionally repetitive and deliberately painstaking, reflecting my ongoing pre-occupation with Time as a subject matter. I think about time all the time. I have many questions about it and I use my practice to think them through: What’s the difference between History and the past? (A Secret Heliotropism, 2006); How will our behaviour now affect the future? (The Book Which Reads Itself, 2007); How might time take on a physical form? (Ten Years, 2008); Are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of earlier generations? (Flashback, 2008); Can I start a conversation with someone who isn’t here anymore? (Escape Lee Krasner, 2009).

In recent months I have had cause to refine my methods. I have formulated a set of rules to obey in the creation of future artworks. These rules can be seen as both a set of guidelines and my own call to arms:

1. Remember that art is the best way of explaining how the world works
2. Put yourself in the position of the object being made
3. Keep books in mind
4. Work towards freedom from time
5. Acknowledge your heroes and pay your debts
6. Don’t let fashion or technology grind you down…

For further information on Nicola’s work, go to: www.axisweb.org/artist/nicoladale