I was completely overwhelmed when I first stepped in The Collection Gallery.

I’ve always appreciated art in the sense that it’s pretty to look at, or it’s interesting, but I’ve never taken the time to figure out my own interpretation on a piece. I suppose people can relate to art just how they would to a performance, they may come away with different meanings or their focus may not of been entirely the same as other audience members, that’s the beauty of it our perceptions are completely individual.

Site Specific is already opening my eyes to exploring a piece of art, but not at face value. On the 29th of January we spoke about what this module entails. We have to perform a piece of theatre that is performed on a certain site, in our case The Usher Gallery/Collection Gallery. The performance however can’t be performed anywhere else because it would have no meaning. This sounded daunting to me. I kept an open mind and we had a chance to explore the space as well as looking at the historic pieces and the ‘Viewpoints’ exhibition. I learnt the process of how the gallery brings in new pieces and the idea of that they’re preserving history, and slowly due to technology and other advancements we won’t have that in the future. It would be wrong for me to not appreciate art right now or pieces of history, as it’s dying out.

Our tutor gave us all an envelope with a certain piece of art in, with two tasks, and we were told to create a one minute performance with the stimulus provided. My piece of art that I had to focus on is called ‘Scene’ created by a seven year old child. This instantly made me think of the innocence of children and I wanted my performance to have a more sinister twist toward the end with a childhood nursery rhyme feel. This is the interpretation I got from Scene, and how the innocence of our childlike self is lost as we grow older and learn the harsh truths of life and what is can throw at us.

 

Image from: http://www.almanac.com/content/stargazing-finding-stars-and-constellations