Building Fiction, 2013
12 section, laser-cut, Concertina binding with veneer boards
280mm x 200mm x 24mm
Edition: 1
Building Fiction is a response to the ideas of vistas and panoramas that formed the starting point of a co-creative residency at the National Trust property Mottisfont. With the artists in residence Anna Heinrich & Leon Palmer.
The project ended with an installation of the co-crreative residency groups responses in the piscina to coincide with Anna & Leon’s installation in the loose boxes.
Rather than looking out at the surrounding landscape, I was immediately struck by the architectural elements within the house. The interior revealed the history of its architecture; the romantic period decoration on the walls framing priory motifs, revealing the accumulated renovation of the building over time.
These became more prominent in differing ways; The cellarium’s mix of red brick, flint walls and stone looked almost clumsily jammed together with cement; or the east entrance, leading out to the river, detailing three time periods in collision – Tudor, Priory and Georgian – all meeting at a doorway. To enter you are entering three parallel histories.
These edges and collisions coupled with the illusions present within Mottisfont, acted as a catalyst. Using photographs, sketches and memory; cutting and layering them, imagining peeling back the walls like pages of a book, to see imagined structures of the past embedded within the building, creating fictional architectures to move through.