A Period Drama

The completion of the publication The Slender Margin between the Real and the Unreal, 2007, helped to secure the appointment of this 2-month residency at Yorkshire Sculpture Park organised by ArtHouse. The timing of the residency was to coincide with an exhibition by the Japanese artist/designer Isamu Noguchi.

The residency provided the opportunity to conduct further research into the significance of place and context within the realm of contemporary art practice. Surreptitious discoveries focused research upon ‘mistaken place-making’ and resulted in the making of an installative work set within the grounds of YSP, which incorporates video and sound. It takes Ken Russell’s 1969 film Women in Love and re-edits the nude wrestling scene and exhibits it within the Bretton Hall grounds where it was wrongly attributed and believed to have been filmed. The residency also led to the publication Host: The Stranger with Jeremy Millar in 2008.

The residency also provided an opportunity for further collaboration between SHU and YSP and resulted in the submission of an AHRC Collaborative Award (unsuccessful) for 2 Fellowships that researches into the commissioning and reception of art practices that the primarily depend on being exhibited in the open air. This area of research will help provide valuable material in the understanding of how art is used and perceived in national and international environment regeneration and may influence government and commercial policy on the commissioning process and impact of art and its contexts. YSP are at the forefront of researching into audiences for public art

The research involved in this project was also explored in a conference paper at HOSPITALITY, Sheffield in 2010 called 'Two naked, sweaty, bearded men and an open fire". The paper talks about the realisation and the delicate relation established between the artists and the gallery.