Impact

by Caroline Cardus

It feels a million light years away (well, May 10th 2008) since the artists and architects all met at Tate Modern and worked together in the Turbine Hall, on the brief 'Come into this space which is a joy to us'.

Looking back, I can see that participating in Architecture-InsideOut has had a direct influence on my work this summer. It usually takes a while before things filter through, but this seems to have happened very quickly! I applied to work with Dada-South and English Heritage on the GoMake! residency, based at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport. Maybe it was just a case of the right thing at the right time - as I'm interested in the impact the world has on a disabled person, it was only a matter of time until my work considered a direct relationship within the building in which it was shown. Fort Brockhurst is an amazing place, and was a compelling setting to examine issues of exclusion, defence and barriers.

The fort is now used by English Heritage to store artifacts from all over the country, and is open to the public at weekends and during Heritage Open Days. For 4 days this September I showed an installation there which was made with local people in the Gosport area. The title of the piece was 'Hidden Battles' and it aimed to show the battles that disabled people fight in their everyday lives.



Going round the keep prior to the beginning of the residency was a powerful experience. Here rooms existed without people. The chilly, damp air in The Keep of Last Resort gave a creepy, standoffish feeling. Each one was so quiet and empty, so sparse of any shred of human existence, that you felt like an intruder. Just speaking aloud seemed to fill them - many of the rooms had impressive acoustic properties. You ended up whispering because the silence became a tangible thing to break. Strangely enough, the plain whitewashed walls looked very like gallery spaces waiting to be filled, yet the atmosphere was totally different. I had to pick a somewhere to show out of a massive collection of redundant rooms.

A narrow passageway led into an unusual shaped space, even for Fort Brockhurst. Starting at a point and widening, the walls led out so the room the shape of an isoceles triangle. From the apex of this triangle, the floor sloped gently down, to the base. There was no natural light, as it was a room within rooms. The ceiling was an extraordinary feat of design, arched eccentrically overhead. All these features led me to be inspired by the space. Enclosed and private, hidden and unexpected, it felt like the 'right' space. It occured to me that I haven't thought much about the right space in relation to my work before - more often it has been working with whatever was made available. This time it was different - the elements in the space itself - sound, atmosphere, temperature - became part of the installation.

Another group of artists showed at Fort Brockhurst during the Heritage Open Days this September. Gristle Mountain is an independent artist-run gallery project based in Gosport, UK. Each exhibition is shown in a place that is not exclusively an art space, such as a Fort, a Farm, a Shed, a Garage, a Field, a Boat, a Library, a Beer Garden or a small Shop. Every show at the Gristle Mountain Gallery will be based around a particular theme and be a playful investigation as to how art objects change the space they inhabit.

I was inspired and excited by Gristle Mountain's concept regarding the presentation of art objects and space. Fort Brockhurst was a powerful backdrop to their collective exhibition of drawings, entitled 'Forget Me'.

I would happily see a whole colony of artists at the fort every summer using all the little places, like the ammunition stores dug into the earth up on the ramparts, or in the gloomy cells, all of which have their own otherworldly feel. It's great to see a trend in general for artists occupying abandoned buildings and making them their own. For disabled artists, making work in response to historic buildings offers a unique point of view that does not often have the opportunity to be heard.