miniaturism

Miniaturism in actuality and intellect

From the immense to the minute.

Miniaturisation - the act or art of making things small. Wider definitions particularly relate to the technology of making devices as small as possible i.e. the microchip; such a huge amount of information with the ability to be stored on a device the size of a fingernail

Throughout history, daily objects have been made miniature to aid the human in some way. In ancient Egypt’s aristocratic funeral rites, miniature scenes were made with incredible skill and attention to detail, depicting the day to day lives of the dead such as fishing and cattle tending as well as figures of those who served them, so that they could continue serving their master in the next life. They offer a “symbolic and sculptural offering of forgotten lives” (Bernier, Celeste-Marie and Judie Newman) proffering a vital insight into the day to day lives of the ancient-dead as well as sheading light onto what they found most important, here it was the abundance of food and the workforce in which to build a new life. In today’s society what would we have made miniature? Would we have objects or would we have ideas? Would we be happy in the world we have, as with the Egyptians before us, or would we create it in its entirety anew?

Doll houses were originally made pre 17th century to explain and test the architectural design of a building and as pedagogy object (Cooley, 2017). Its uses were transposed to act as a sort of wunderkammer for the rich of the Victorian era, being used to display an exact miniature replica of their homes. And the only viewers of these objects were those of the private, wealthy class. The interest in the right to inhabit was silent. In the art world, the use of the miniature has harnessed this wondrous way of creating and warped its meaning to fuel a politically charged statement. Take the works of artists such as Slinkachu, Isaac Cordal, Marc Valli and Margherita Dessanay; much like the work of George Segal, recreating everyday scenes, but miniature. Now in this context ‘Everyday’ refers to the entirety of the world, turning our western safe-haven idea of the word ‘everyday’ on its head, and placing these ‘safe’

characters into war zones, post-apocalyptic and post-climatechanging worlds. But within Our everyday lives, we just have to find them. Either these artists make their figures from scratch or they use model railway figurines, and all juxtapose with scenes from the street to create a politically charged statement and “left to the surprise of passers-by, allowing everyone to invent a story” (Cartron, 2017). The reliance on discovery is therefore paramount, in Shirley Jordan’s essay in Cities Interrupted she comments “the temporal interruption that street photography habitually enacts seem enhanced, redoubled, and draws attention to itself with a newly critical purpose. Street photography today, then, is sharply alert to the ideas, discourses and experiences of globalisation and seems to interrogate these in a range of inventive ways”. Meaning the act of manipulating and interrupting space needs to have a viewer to share it. In effect, it is an act of a photographer, laying out the scene and later publishing their works rather than the actual artist.

The advent of social media sites such as Instagram ensures the ideas longevity and development. John Berger’s description of a photographs “temporarily interrupting times flow” (Jordan and Lindner, p159. 2016) can be perfectly apt as this is the intention of Miniaturists and Craftivists alike; they want to interrupt time and make passers-by stop, question their message, and hopefully, perpetuate it and develop it. And yet without the scene behind the image would not exist. Each photograph is carefully choreographed to project its message, from lighting, time of year, ground texture and state of time or decay. All designed spaces are created to project the perfect vision of an idea and as time fills the space the wearings show, the stories etch and the space is proved to either be successful or no.

The photographer picks their piece: The outside world belongs to us all.

Figure 11 Where: Matalon 82, Tel Aviv Jan Vormann ‘Dispatchwork’ “Fix the world in Colours” Part of a world wide network working together to ‘heal’ the proken parts of the world through art. From the physical action comes the physical idea, if you sow the seeds of an idea amongst people it can take hold and become a bigger movement than was ever imagined

In terms of the things we leave behind, creating the miniature and vice versa, the power of a hidden object cannot be ignored. If one stumbles across a secret it recalls child-like natures of wonderment and intrigue. If one feels like they have found it rather than have the image pushed in the face, then a sense of ownership or belonging is imbued, and the message the piece is trying to give is that much louder for its smaller size (Corbett, S. 2016). And such the phrase “small yet mighty” holds its significance. Small actions encourage partaking, if it is seen as something, easy and simple, then it invites the viewer to learn more; if we provide hidden spaces these actions can thrive.

Trafalgar Square pedestrian traffic lights. October, 2016.