Real site interventions

I’m finding myself really enjoying these interventions. At first, being only restricted to body and objects was difficult but I am seeing that the bigger we go, the more creative I find myself becoming. I knew first off, before even starting, that I wanted my interventions to really create an atmosphere. I started off big; taking a mattress and making a bed in my crazy backyard. It was daunting because this yard is overgrown, spider filled and to top it off, it was raining. Despite multiple challenges, I appreciate the outcome and can see the atmospheric change it brings to the site. Taking a familiar space and planting it in the unfamiliar creates an unusual juxtaposition in the eyes of the audience. My intervention activates the surroundings by highlighting how unruly it is. Should I have simply taken a photo of the yard without the bed/desk, it would’ve been rather plain. By placing the bed there, it brings out the curl of every weed, the way the plants grab onto the furniture, and the brightness of nature. Even though I didn’t have to, I planted myself in these pictures for a humorous effect.

My Yard is My Bed

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Another intervention I decided to do (to a different space) was creating a home in the front yard. What is a home? In a literal sense: four walls, windows, and space to sit. I wanted to take this literal representation (except a bit more run down) and make it real. I was lucky enough to find rotting bits of wood around my home and plexiglass. Then I found a chair in the garden. Strange, the chair should be unusual in an outside context but it was so rotten and web-filled that it fits in nicely. The makeshift house result; unstable. I couldn’t fit in. My cat could, lucky her, but after a few sniffs, even she deemed it unhomely. The main thing I find intriguing about this intervention was how all the materials I used were somewhat succumbing to nature; rot, dirt, dust, webs. It was fitting to place this home in an outside context. Right at home, I would say.

A House?

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Then to end off, I decided on two smaller interventions. Once again, I sourced my materials from around the house. These two, however, were more clearly manmade. I found a small scooter mirror and stuck it on the branch of a tree. This was probably my least favourite intervention due to the simplicity. Second, I got my mums favourite candle holder and placed it on the crumbling childhood swing. Fire whipped by the wind, this was only a momentary intervention. I love the spooky atmosphere it created though as the candles were eerily out of place and it looks unclear what hands would place them on a child’s swing.

Minor interventions

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