Through each stage of this current series of papier mâché bowls, I’ve been (unintentionally) creating cocoon-like structures – beehives, wasp nests and then dung balls.
They began as an inquiry into what it would feel like to put my head inside a papier mâché bowl, immersed in the experience of just listening and connecting to them.
On this scale (the largest vessel having a circumference of 216cm), the papier mâché became difficult to control. Often the weight of the wet paper pulp would cause it to collapse en masse, and then as it slowly dried out, cracks repeatedly opened up, distorting the form.
I began to add fresh cow dung to the paper pulp, to make it more pliable, and provide lightweight reinforcement, incidentally overcoming a long-standing fear of being near cows in a field!
My interaction with the spheres became a practice in accepting changes of direction, of letting them be flawed and in some sense, unreconciled – it has led me to develop a phenomenological approach to the work.
It takes time to find a balance between creating structure, and working intuitively, with efficiency and ease – this state of equilibrium almost always eludes me, but I know there is at least, a freedom born out of simple repetition.
I’m discovering through this process, something about Being – how we determine a sense of ourselves, through space: merging; taking it up; controlling; dispersing.
© 2024 Emma Scott
