But in between all of this stuff, I've visited a few exhibitions so I thought I'd write about those as a breather for all the other bits and bobs I'm doing.
In the midst of it all, I managed to squeeze in two days at home to visit Alex and my parents. Walking up from the train station in Nottingham, I thought I would pop into the Nottingham Contemporary, just because. I was not disappointed! The museum was holding a Simon Starling exhibition, who although I didn't really know much about him before, I left absolutely loving the work on display there.
The first room was dominated with two huge silver blobs, which beautiful in their own right, blew my mind once I'd read label for the piece (I believe a lot in labels). The two tiny photographs ion the back wall puzzled me for a while; the photographs are of Chinese migrant workers outside the Sampson shoe factory in North Adams, Massachusetts in 1875. The big blobs turned out to be representing two silver particles from the cut outs of these two pictures, blown up a million times. The two objects were made of forged stainless steel from Nanjing, before being shipped to Massachusetts to be exhibited at MOCA.
Immediately I felt like Starling was 'one of us', a design historian in his thinking through objects, images and history. I love that his work is encompassed by lots of different pieces, filling up the space with narrative and a reflection on processes. The contrast between the two tiny photographs and the two enormous sculptures really excited me for the rest of the exhibition. I felt it was crucial that the photographs were a part of this first piece, 'The Nanjing Particles', clearly pinpointing this group of minuscule people in the photograph as a part of history to discover, delve into a recognise. Not only are these objects beautiful, but also socially important, there is a clear message here that is to do with people and their place in history.
The second piece that stood out to me, 'Red, Green, Blue, Loom Music' focuses on the weaving processes that Starling documented at the Antica Fabric Pasamanerie Massia Vittorio in Turin. Behind hanging threads showed a ten minute video documenting the process of weaving from the threads to fabric. In the main room stood what looked like a piano and several object hanging from the walls; it turned out that the piano was actually a pianola, a self-playing piano that uses a reel of punched paper to play. On the walls was a piece of sheet music, called 'La Machinna Tessile' (The Loom), a reel of punched paper for pianola, slatted Jacquard punch cards, and two reams of fabric.
It was exhilarating to connect the dots - During his visit to the factory showroom, Starling found the piece of sheet music on a baby grand piano, 'La Machinna Tessile' by Rinaldo Bellucci, inspired by the machines in the factory. After listening and recording the music, he transferred the music into a reel of punch cards, which produces the pattern on the two reams of woven fabric (from my limited knowledge of weaving, its the front and back!). These punch cards were then transferred into pianola music, bringing the process full cycle, from music, to textiles, back to music again.
This exhibition is an absolute dream for me, and I'm sure if HoD went on a trip to the exhibition we would all be going wild with inspiration for our own work. The whole time I was thinking 'this is so history of design', especially after our first exhibition Reimagining Objects in response to our object essays. As much as I believe our practice as design historians is about research, its also about being able to express that research, through writing as well as through objects, curation, making and collaboration. One thing I would absolutely love to see is Starling's process, his sketchbooks, writings and note throughout his process of making these works. I will definitely be looking out for more exhibitions like this!
If you're around the Midlands, go and see this before it's finished! At the Nottingham Contemporary until the 26th June.
