May Meet in Mutual

My trusty suitcase, rucksack and me

Dundee Channel Online... there is an interview but I am not going to link this 

(images via Katie Reid, for more images of May Meet in Mutual click here)

Last week May Meet In Mutual happened! A site responsive exhibition based at the Baxter Park Centre. Nine artists made works which looked at the park as it is now (how it functions within the community, environmentally and the potential it has in relation to its history...). Artists included;- Morgan Cahn, Sarah Johnston, Rebecca Jones, Holly Keasey, Hannah Moitt, Emma Reid, Katie Reid and Beth Savage. We each worked within our own practice but were linked through the site responsive nature of the work and inspired by the words of Sir David Baxter, the parks founder "a common ground where all may meet in mutual acknowledgement of their dependence the one upon the other."

A piece of detritus from the park!

My installation in-situ with Beth Savage's work

I made a trace outside using chalk, so that it would be reflected over the installation inside but just off centre

We had supposedly one Open Install day but the community prerequisite of the building meant that the building had people coming in and out all the time, enquiring about our work and really engaging with the change in the building's usual function.  With time scarce now that I am working so much, I decided to turn up with a suitcase of a few photographs from parkland from Craigmillar, Edinburgh and just a few materials, planning to make work from the park's detritus. This proved difficult with the park seeming almost white-washed compared to the rest of Dundee. I used this challenge to make work comparing the hidden neglected nature of the parkland in Craigmillar and the concealing qualities of the Baxter Park with what seemed to someone in my position -  somewhat an "outsider" of the local area, that the community centre is perhaps the only area of the park that the reality beyond the fences of the park can really congregate. I took a few objects with me, a couple of door mats and a printer, creating an installation from some found difficult-to-find Baxter Park objects, creating instant photographs, drawings and photocopies, left over the course of the exhibition for people to add, change, take-away and expose elements. 

 

The main part of my Mutual Divide installation as I left it 

How the main installation ended up