Breaking the Boundaries - Sarah Lundy's comments

Breaking the Boundaries – Sarah Lundy’s comments

Jennifer task:

Sounds really interesting, something I'd love have been able to take part in. Democratic is definitely a good term to denote the ethos of the initiative, which is important with the ever growing void between the general public and art. I think it was an important idea as anyone could take part, without judgement, reference to education, performance pressure or the myriad other deterrents to engaging with contemporary art. It was not only engagement but shared authorship or the work. People had the opportunity to co-author a piece of contemporary conceptual art, which at once extended the opportunity to engage with and create art, but more importantly to understand what art is currently as the shared viewer/maker processes of compositional consideration, conceptual comprehension and contribution were exercised by the audience/authors, instilling in them an appreciation for the power of art to inspire questioning and boarder thinking around life and all its attributes. I will look at the images on the blog now. Very interesting. Regarding the cards, I'd be wary of using them at all unless they are distorted beyond identification for legal reasons, or unless clearance was gotten first. Maybe by soaking them-to distort the specific images/details-and drying them, a new invited/random audience painting over them to create an ongoing construction of the strata of strangers? Ah I dunno, like all I've read though. I would absolutely love to have a good auld root through the stuff left below, thrilling! Conceptually it does raise questions as to value, consumerism, rubbish, the inter-connectivity of the world due to the mass-produced sameness of the goods available to buy globally, homogenization, originality, appropriation, privacy, publicity etc. I think a good name would be 'Objective Orgy' ha!

Sue:

Sounds like this went well in the end which is great Sue. I would agree strongly with what has been said by the others about this. It is very important to have a local profile, especially a physical one as many people and organisations seem to reside largely in cyber-space because of facebook and such. I know that I 'know' lots of Irish artists due to their online profiles, shared exhibitions etc but have never actually met them or seen their face. Very odd really. I struggle with creating a personable local profile with the local arts scene due to unwillingness to go to openings, fear of crowds, inability to make proper small-talk etc, but it is something that i feel is important and that I want to work on, so I commend you for having the guts to put yourself out there as a person and artist and to host a successful event 'in the field'! I am not very well versed in the scope of your practice but I would imagine that context wise this was a real breaking of boundaries? I know you do work with groups, but outside? In a medium beyond the glass-work you are so skilled at? New location, new medium, new context-community art?. Artists have the responsibility to extend their own appreciation for art to those willing but marginalized where they can, especially now that art is largely made for other artists appreciation, a learned predisposition is required and the general public are alienated. As the others stated, now that you have a profile as artist, people will be receptive to all future ideas (artistic licence) as opposed to being suspicious. You have created an infrastructure of reception for your ideas, a foundation which you can build upon as and when and at whatever rate you want. If you were to host another very similar event you may risk being pigeon-holed, but if you keep things fresh and varied then people will just admire and anticipate your innovative initiative.

Jo:

This was also a brave move-to invite people into your front yard and even your home. I think that the notions as mentioned above of the private and the public are addressed in this work across the board; you painted without consent people you found interesting, then you invited random people into your home; there could be a correlation between the location you chose to exhibit these works and the subjects within the works, in that you were looking at down-and-outs, the homeless, the chemically dependent etc and literally giving them a home, inviting them into a haven, making society look at them, witness their cases, promote empathy toward them. I know you had empathy with them yourself and maybe were projecting your personal situation onto their extreme situation and them uniting these within the conceptual and actual realm of your home to express your own anguish and anxieties through their cases in your casement? All just ideas, I don't know the full story so gleaning what I can from our last chat! Makes me think of the  Goya paintings and how he broke boundaries by not painting the rich and beautiful but opting to paint people in the mad house etc instead. Yeah I also love the idea of a book, I'd personally go for a shabby scrap-book/old crammed photo album kinda look, photos of the actual people, images of the paintings. Maybe you could extend the project on to 'A-Day-In-the-Life' of a bum and get someone (your daughter) to document it, drinking in public places in the day, begging for change. Ok, I just heard myself, mad, sorry, but it would be good to walk a mile in their shoes perhaps. Maybe it could turn into a social awareness campaign, get some funding from whoever the homeless protection agency is over there and disseminate wee booklets. Could highlight the precarious balance there is between having a home and food etc and losing it all through metaphors like scales, chess etc. Just ideas. Like Jennifer's, its ask us to think about what and who we overlook and are willing to discard. A ballsy project it was, fair play.

Mine:

I created three video pieces on The Absurd (a concept arising from french existentialism) and the couple of books I read. The Absurd: "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism] That is not a very good explanation really, well it is and it isn't but I'll be damned if I'm gonna try to sum it up! It has to be read as philosophy or literature. Anyway I was taking repetition and randomness as adverse templates for life as outlined by Camus and Sartre, and trying to denote harnessed hope, futility, meaninglessness. ANYWAY, the videos are here: http://www.sarahellenlundy.com/video.php (sorry the site is shite, too little work, too many words etc..). I hadn't attempted video work before so in this way I broke my boundaries. When I had made them (it was only meant to be one piece but looked too cheesy so turned into a triptych) I applied to four exhibition opportunities. I was successful in three of these. They were all very different-one local, one in a new space the other end of the country, one as part of a festival. It caused me torment as suddenly I was aligning myself with video artists of which I am not one really, which made me feel like a fraud, but then I was accepted to a video-art collective which gave me confidence in the work I had made: http://www.mart.ie/news. Then I got proposed for a local/rural arts collective but need to be voted in and won't know how that goes until the new year. I feel it went well in the end despite the initial hell of trying to make videos with no expertise, experience or equipment. It was the biggest jump I've ever made medium-wise. Feedback is welcome.