The imaginary museum

The people who run the museum site were very happy to host the module. They have kept a few pieces as these can be useful for them, so perhaps it’s time to reflect on one further aspect of these site specific modules, that of preparation for a career in the arts. Like the hospital sector, museums have been regular employers of artists, who have been used to re-engage with collections and to re-energise them for visitors. This fact will hopefully help students see that not everything a fine artist does must be confined to the studio and that there are other very worthwhile opportunities out there. (Or were, we shall have to see where the recession takes us). Thank God it’s not my job to put the PPP1 module together though, professional development is something I’ve always been rubbish at and best left in someone else’s hands. One thing that is useful about it is that it suggests that being an artist is a job. It was a job for Raphael and a job for Turner, I like that; it brings things down to earth.

There is something that makes the job special though and why every year new students come and why they have so many expectations of the discipline.

There was one small piece of work done in response to the museum that sums up why the museum want us back, why museums use artists and why this is such a great discipline. One student was using moss or lichen to work with. (There is a type called lung lichen) She had seen the similarity in structure to human lungs and was aware of how chalk dust had killed many of the workers who had spent their days grinding chalk rocks into a fine enough powder for the putty. After years of exposure chalk accumulates in the lungs and causes respiratory failure. After some materials investigation she discovered you could dip the lichen in white gloss paint and when dry you had a delicate filigree membrane that could be easily controlled to make a shape like a tiny single lung. She then constructed two of them with connecting tubes. This tiny sculpture was then put under a transparent bell dome and a wooden base turned and polished to fit exactly with the existing furniture in the museum. The object was then placed where you would expect something similar to be. For the casual observer passing by they would probably miss it but on second glance there is a moment of poetry that in one object conjoins many of the stories about working conditions in the 19^th century, with the Victorian need to collect and categorise and the museum’s own remit to freeze history. The object works both as a type of vanitas and as a Surrealist object. Art can do that and when it does it’s fantastic.

This is a first year module and it occasionally produces moments of real poetry, the friction between what young artists want to do and the reality of the site, sometimes sparking off moments of insight that come from being taken outside of their comfort zones. This is the real learning curve, one we all need to take on board. The world out there is amazing and when you need to invent or move work on into new territories, just push yourself into new and different situations, something will come up, it always does. All you have to do is be open and receptive.