I am building rooms, records, objects and routes of my own so the work can live beyond a feed, with the time and context that an artist archive needs.
The feed is a surface
The feed is useful. It can show a drawing to someone in another city, help a collector find a work or let a project travel before I can travel with it. But a feed is still a surface. It is not a studio, archive, room, relationship or cultural memory.
I do not want it to become the only place where the work exists. The work needs time, material, context and somewhere to hold what cannot fit into one image.
Building a room around the work
That is why I keep building spaces and systems alongside the art. The website is not only a portfolio. It arranges paintings, objects, murals, drawings, projects, writing and invitations so they can be understood as parts of one practice.
THE FLOOR came from the same need in physical space. It is a room for artists, work, conversations and the conditions around making. Countercult comes from a related question, but it is cultural infrastructure: how can cultural knowledge, independent spaces and local relationships become easier to find and connect to paid work?
Technology can return us to the body
I am not interested in pretending technology is the enemy of physical work. I use code, databases and digital tools because they can help a practice hold more relationships than one person can hold alone. The question is what the technology is for and who it leaves with more capacity.
A digital archive can lead back to a wall, room, piece of furniture, conversation or original work. A public cultural map can help someone find a space they would otherwise miss. The screen should not become the final destination.
The work has to leave the screen
Paintings still need bodies in front of them. Objects need weight, surface and use. Murals need walls and the people who move past them. A residency needs a room, key, table, person who knows the place and enough time for something unexpected.
I want to protect that physical return. I am interested in systems that bring people back to the world with better information, better invitations and more meaningful reasons to meet. The point is not a larger feed. It is a more useful route into the work.
Credits
- Original Sketchy Shona studio note on the relationship between art, physical space, culture technology and Countercult.