Tutorial Report

Tutorial Meeting with BH:

After briefly discussing her Diploma Stage presentation, BH showed me her 2 newest pieces of work. She showed me slides of The Christmas Tree, presented at the Cannizaro Park exhibition. The slides brought up the role of documentation in BH’s work. The slides are necessary to certify that an event occurred, in order to present them to an assessment panel, funding body or gallery management. They are also helpful for BH to see the formal qualities of the work However, they don't seem to be part of the piece itself.

BH's verbal account of the performance was very interesting, more so than the documentation, which made me think whether her pieces were actions that could be transformed depending on the context (ie. What would ‘The Christmas Tree’ look like if it was adapted for a space like the Centre for Drawing?)

'The Christmas Tree' deals with material immateriality and BH herself pointed out how important it was for her to carry out the reading for the Dickens text even if no one was present to listen to it. As in previous tutorials, issues of trust were raised.

BH also showed me two pieces of writing: one from Charles Dickens, she read in 'The Christmas Tree' and a another from a fellow MA student, describing 'The Christmas Tree'. They both raised interesting issues around authorship and intellectual property rights, things she will have to consider in a market or more public situation. The lack of engagement with them, however, is offering BH a space for experimentation that perhaps she would lose to a certain extent were she to consider them as part of the creative process.

We also discussed her work in relation to Gabriel Orozco’s and his understanding of immateriality, his documentation and the representation of himself through interviews.

Her second work, '50 Umbrellas Given Away During Rain', was shown as part of the Space 44 exhibition at Hackney Wick. The piece was again, in my opinion, site specific but adaptable. Hand printed in blue, a set of newsprint papers hung inside the gallery read: '50 Umbrellas Given Away During Rain'. In the event of rain, BH would have stood outside the gallery, handing out 50 umbrellas.

I thought this piece was 2 separate works: the papers, and the umbrellas, of which one was successful (the umbrellas) and the other one was dependant (the papers). The action of handing out umbrellas, again, depended on the trust, belief, necessity of raining, but the piece would have existed even if there it was hot and sunny. The action of giving, the possibility of being dry when raining thanks to an artist's work, was the important component and whereas the function of the papers inside the gallery was that of announcing the umbrellas. The fact that the papers were multiple and could be taken away confused the audience, as BH said. Perhaps they also hampered the message they were supposed to convey, due to their form. The piece however, had a lot of very interesting qualities like the fragility of the paper and the handwritten message, The colours and typography, the wholes through which it was hung... I felt that, even through the message written wasn't right for me medium chosen (the announcement of the umbrellas, I thought, needed something more sign-like), the paper piece could be developed into a very successful work.

'50 Umbrellas Given Away During Rain' is the most developed piece of work BH has produced because it changes the inevitable (from wet to dry) rather than adding something (party fun in the case of the paper hats, knowledge about readers in the case of the bookmarks, testimony in the case of the photographed bird).

BH’s writing, from her oral presentation and the texts she has handed me, is of a very high level and I have no doubt she will meet the MA level standard of writing. A focus on research question and context, which she has already mapped adequately, will differentiate her written submission from that of a Professional Preparation Master Scheme student.