Michelle ForrestBeckett Interviewed by Emily Musgrave
Michelle Forrest-Beckett (born 1976, Middlesbrough) is a
practicing artist and an MA student in Fine Art, at the University of Lincoln. Referring to past group shows, where her works explored intermedial shifts across disciplines of assemblage, installation and moving image, to reflect upon factual/ fictional histories relating to the exhibition site; ‘Home-lab' Lincoln, 2016, ‘The Market Estate Project' Islington, London, 2010, 'That's it, it's over, goodbye' The Duke of Clarence, London SE1, 2009, 'Damaged in Transit' The Art Organisation, Nottingham, 2007, ‘Fine Art Degree Show’ Greestone Gallery, Lincoln, 2007 and 'Arts in the Park' Arboretum Park, Lincoln, 2006, Michelle has since focused her research and practice upon methods of narrate abstraction, to think through irreconcilable divisions between aspirations and reality. Building a world where (dis)beliefs are suspended and left in the balance for reconsideration, Michelle assembles architectural forms, which she titles mind(scapes). Where the spirit of consciousness is relinquished within a zone of irreality, that is uninhibited by the limitations of the real-world, she creates a place where former feelings of lack are reclaimed and transformed into a desiring prospect. An open-ended landscape, that echoes an eternal incompleteness, boundless possibilities unfold and expand. https://mmforrestbeckett.wordpress.com/ mmforrestbeckett@gmail.com
MFB: I didn’t make it as a piece of work, I made it to try and get over something and resolve something I was feeling unsettled about. Something I needed to face. EM: What was it that you were trying to face? MFB: Well, when you take photographs, nowadays, they tend to be digital, so you never really print them. And so these photos had sat on my computer, it must be about… God I don’t even know. Ten years? Something like that. When I was dealing with ideas of domesticity in my art practice. I felt like this was something that I had to face. I had to print those pictures out, since I never looked at them when they were taken. I took them, put them on the hard drive and I never looked at them again because I felt like it was a sad moment. It was when the family house was sold and it was sold for reasons which were quite sad and the only way I could document the house was when the rooms were empty. So it’s not really something that you want to really keep and cherish, but yet it was the only testimony I had. ‘Cause sometimes you hold onto things for nostalgic purposes but this was like I didn’t want to feel like I had to erase part of history. It sounds a bit melodramatic really because, everybody has to leave homes behind, bricks and mortar, different things, times change. But because there was a part of history that lead to leaving the family home and the family home being sold, there was something that I felt like I didn’t want to go back to, because it made me feel sad. EM: So, do you have an association of sadness with it? What do you feel when you look at it?
MFB: Yeah. Well now, I feel like I’ve overcome most of the sadness or fear of the sadness, because that’s why I challenged myself to make it into an object. And, I made it to be a bit more playful, so they’re like children’s blocks. EM: I was actually going to say, there’s something quite juvenile about it. MFB: Yeah. EM: And what is that about? MFB: Well its literally relates to the childhood of me being in that home, I guess the age of when I was there. Plus, just to be able to look at something maybe a bit more light-hearted by playing. And maybe taking something that’s fractured, disjointed and maybe being able to change your view or perspective. I didn’t really think too much into it I don’t think, but maybe I did. I mean, we think about so much with making art and critiquing ourselves anyway as artists that you know, I’m sure there’s a lot gone into it, but maybe subconsciously. I do think of Rachel Whiteread when I look at it because I love her work and the fact that the rooms, the inside of the rooms of the photos are on the outside of a block that can’t be entered, there’s that similarity. So I guess there’s connotations there, but I never... it’s just for me it was a way of acknowledging and ‘cause I work with objects, they’re like a visual testament to a past and I guess this doesn’t allow my memory to die by having something visual, do you see? To hold on to. EM: It’s a way to “permanise” it.
MFB: Yeah. And I’ve been reading about longing and there’s two sides of representing it. Usually, in my art practice, I create large and infinite works that are about trying to fulfil a longing, that I don’t even know what it is I’m trying to represent. This is something that’s longed for - that’s passed, so that’s why I think it’s small. EM: So is each block a room? MFB: Yeah, and people might not be able to make it out. We didn’t live in a very normal house, my mum was a bit mental and did lots of weird things to it, it drove us nuts. And so it doesn’t look like maybe your average house, you can make out windows and things, features. But to the average person that might… it might be compelling because it’s a bit obscure or ‘why would somebody want to do that?’ but I guess, I don’t know… it means a lot to me. EM: Do you arrange it in a conscious way? MFB: I did just then. EM: Why’s that? MFB: Because it allows me to walk through my memory of the rooms. EM: So its in an order that allows you to recreate… MFB: Yeah, that’s literally in somewhat of an order.
EM: Okay. MFB: Yeah. EM: So, what would happen if I moved the order around? MBF: I’d find that interesting, I think. EM: Shall I do it? MFB: Yeah, yeah do it. EM: Okay. (EM now moves the blocks into a different, slightly incoherent order) MFB: Nobody has played with them before, or rearranged them. EM: How did that make you feel? MFB: Actually, really fun. Because I’m thinking ‘Oh why is my sister’s old bedroom next to the living room?’ (laughs) and what else have we got? Oh and the stairs to the loft bedroom – mine and my brother’s bedrooms are now on the ground floor. EM: Because without that story, and you telling me which rooms they are… I wouldn’t know. MFB: No…
EM: Because they are bare. MFB: Yeah. EM: ..and they have no belongings in it to indicate that is a bedroom. The stairs are fairly self-explanatory I think. MFB: Yeah. EM: So, if I take it away and hide them. (The blocks are removed from MFB’s sight) Can you describe it from memory? MFB: So there’s 8 cubes, which make up 8 rooms but actually I think there was probably more rooms in the house. And then there’s 2 triangular cubes on the top to form the roof. EM: And what does it feel like? MFB: The object? EM: Mm-hm. MFB: It feels playful. Which is what I wanted it to be, but my memory that day wasn’t. But I guess memories of that house would have been playful because you can’t take away from the fact that I had a great childhood. A great playful childhood there, it’s just I guess these object look at the end, the final point of what I remember of that house, rather than all of the… the however many number of years we were there having our childhood.
EM: So does it play a strong part in your identity? If you lived there for so long or you’ve obviously got a strong enough relationship with that house to create an object which you cherish. MFB: It does, but I think in respect of a personal side of me. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lived in so many places and I’m now so far into my life that I actually don’t talk much about my childhood? And, I don’t even know if I talk a lot about my childhood when I do go home and see the family. I don’t know. So I guess it just feels very personal to me. If the people who know me don’t need to associate me with that object. So I don’t know if that detaches from my identity, I’m not sure. If that makes sense (laughs). EM: Where do you place this object? Where does it belong in your life in terms of display? MFB: At the minute its been sitting in my studio because I’m working on trying to be less subjective in my work. That’s like the epitome of (laughs) this is my personal story. Although, its still very abstract to the average viewer. Do you see what I mean? Even if somebody knew me...I mean even my husband probably… does my husband know that house? Yeah my husband did know that house, so he would make the association. But no one, not many other people in my life would make the association. It sits in the space to remind me where I’m going from and where I’m going to because I guess it’s challenging personal things but wanting to challenge it on a wider scale if you can, on a common ground, so that its more about people than just about me.
EM: How would it make you feel if the object was gone, lost for whatever reason? MFB: I guess you could recreate it, but would there be need to? I think for me, it was like a rite of passage of facing through it. Facing the challenge of confronting those photos. And because I’ve just printed them out on paper a lot of them are already wearing. But it’s not like I want to preserve it because I guess it shows it’s been interacted with and maybe it allows for me to let go of it as well by losing its surface. So, for me I’m trying to embrace that, to come to terms with the fact that it’s a part of my past. It’s something that I can remember and don’t have to so much hold on to. It’s funny because I make (art) with existing objects. I’m a collector of lots and lots of old things and sometimes they’re not personal, sometimes they’re from a past that’s so intriguing they could be broken, they could be worth nothing and I could have brought a multitude of things in, but I guess that was the first thing that came to mind because it was so challenging. EM: Does it provoke feeling? MFB: Yeah, it does. And I do have a few letters and I’ve got childhood books and things that my mums kept. She was very, very, materially associated so she kept clothes, she kept school books, she kept all our birthday cards growing up. Just so much stuff and then that day that I went to the house, I had to collect about ten plastic boxes of objects and take them home and I’ve since had to reduce that ten boxes to a smaller amount ‘cause I’m now custodian of these things - but I guess, I had to pick out what was important to me and not what was
important to my mum. EM: What was the criteria for that? MFB: What meant the most, what I could associate with a memory from my childhood. EM: Was it always a memory from your childhood or was there recent memories with these objects or feelings? MFB: They were all childhood objects EM: So they were all nostalgic? MFB: Yeah. I mean some I guess, it’s my mum reminding me; ‘You’ve had that since you were one year old’ and then I remember naming it “daddy-long-legs” It’s this gorgeous little bear with really long stripey legs. It’s a really retro looking thing, it’s quite cool. Maybe that was a factor of keeping it. But it’s like, I’ve had that since I was one and look at it. It’s still full of charm and because I keep so many objects that I make with that may not be associated in my history and other people’s history, I guess that one stood out. EM: So is it the object you’d like to represent your life? When you’re gone? MFB: Oh God. It could (laughs) I don’t know. It’s funny because I don’t have children and don’t plan on having children and I always say to my partner ‘All this stuff, where’s it gonna’ go?’ (laughs) stuff that’s really, you know, you treasure…
where’s it gonna’ go? We can’t pass it on to anybody. And realistically, I’d like to think I could build a mausoleum with a beautiful coffin and be put in there, housed in there with family members and friends and lots of objects, but I think in reality (laughs) I probably won’t be able to afford that. EM: Quite like ancient Egypt, then. MFB: Yeah (laughs) I’ve been to that amazing graveyard at Hampstead Heath and they have an Egyptian-esque kind of… EM: But there’s nothing to say you can’t do that. MFB: No, you never know. It feels very… I guess it just makes me feel at peace. Even though, I don’t know… I think once you’re gone you’re gone but then have moments of romanticism thinking ‘ooh! Wouldn’t it be nice?’ to have a resting place you can always- but I think it just makes you feel better in the now to think ‘oh yeah I can rest there’. I did look at burial chambers, pre-historic burial chambers where people were actually buried in the place that they used to live. So, they had these circular kind of buildings that they made and they had like a grass roof and that’s how they kind of are now. And they, well they may not have had a grass roof when they were living in it, but that’s how they look now. And yeah, their bodies were supposed to be buried in the place that they lived, so everybody had a space. But back in prehistoric times that was probably achievable. When you read novels of graves overflowing in the Victorian era and bodies being buried on top of bodies. I guess you don’t think like that now, you just think that you’ll be cremated and it makes life easier for everyone (laughs)
EM: So does the idea of not having this archive of your life on display or somehow permanised upset you? MFB: No, I just think I’m being realistic. I think if you were to daydream about it, it’d be like ‘Oh my god yeah that’d be epic’ y’know ‘cause we all love going to, I don’t know, museums like Sigmund Freud and being able to see all of the objects that influenced him, that he wanted around him that, y’know, that had an impact. ‘Cause we all want to get into the mind of these thinkers and these people especially when they had something really pivotal and significant to say like he did. I guess, it would be lovely to think I could aspire to have a museum about me, but I think the average person doesn’t think like that, you just think ‘Enjoy it while it’s here as best you can’. There’s been times in my life where I’ve felt really bogged down by the objects because I spent a lot of the time living out of a bag, travelling the world. I didn’t own anything. And now I own white goods and I don’t own a house yet which is something I’m grappling with because everybody wants to feel like they have a home that they can come home to and feel y’know, it reflects them. But, at the same time, this need, I try and challenge it, but I think ‘Well right, maybe I never need to own a house, maybe I will just be a bit fleeting and nomadic and maybe that’s more true to me, that I’m only feeling like I need to materialise myself because I’m getting older and I need something to show for it. EM: So these blocks, do they represent that home?
MFB: Yes, I think that’s it. I think by recreating it, it represents that I can always feel at home in the memory of it. I bought something at a flea market a few months ago and they’re little handmade, German...what are they made of? It looks like terracotta, and it’s a little house! Two little houses, they look like gingerbread houses and when I took them home, the other half saying ‘What are they?’ and well if I never own a house I can just have these ones. And it’s being able to challenge the fear of wanting the security of something. You want the nest, you’re going to build your own family home to be able to move on from the one you haven’t quite come to terms with having to let go of. But actually, maybe… maybe that’s enough? Maybe that object’s enough. EM: It’s a representation of the home rather than the physical… MFB: Yeah, the physical thing. Which again is a bit paradoxical, but I guess I can carry it around! It doesn’t cost me £200,000 and a life of being stuck to a mortgage (laughs) EM: Okay, we’ve talked about (the object) as a whole even though its cubed, but if you had to choose one cube? MFB: Ooh I do have a cube actually! (laughs) That one. (MFB chooses the cube with a light, bright window which covers two sides of the cube) EM: Why’s that?
MFB: That corner. I think… EM: The window? MFB: The window. I’ve been looking at windows a lot, the window has a paradoxical reading of either being repressed behind it or looking out and looking at opportunity and the light of that window, it makes me feel really positive. And that is actually my mum and dad’s bedroom window (laughs) which I guess I don’t maybe think I’d associate so much with being positive. But I just love the light coming through there. EM: But that window has an association for you of positivity? MFB: I think it’s just… EM: Regardless of context. MFB: Yeah. But maybe I’m looking for the positive because I’ve made it playful anyway… maybe it’s just, regardless of context, nice to hold onto that, because it fortuitously came out looking that way. EM: So that wasn’t- are any of these planned to you or did you just… MFB: I just literally, I remember taking my camera, it wasn’t a good camera at the time and just thinking ‘I’m just going to take a photo of every room’ and I tried to stand in the room
and just take it from different angles, just to desperately hold on to something ‘cause, as you’re growing up there might be some photos of us growing up in that house, but not capturing every room from every angle so you can try and walk through it. It might sound a bit desperate or obsessional or weird to want to do that, but for me I felt quite desperate. The house was going. I couldn’t do anything about it, it wasn’t my house. And the situation was that the house needed to go. But I think it wouldn’t have mattered so much if the circumstances were my mam and dad were just downsizing, I don’t know. EM: You questioned whether your husband even knew about this object. MFB: Yeah. ‘Cause I’ve not really wanted needed to share this with anyone… EM: But why’s that? MFB: It’s just something that I needed for me. EM: Is it a therapeutic object? MFB: Yeah, definitely. Definitely, definitely. EM: So, hypothetically. If there was a fire in your house and.. what would you save? Obviously you’d save your husband and your dogs. MFB: Yep.
EM: But what’s the next thing down you would rescue? MFB: Oh my God. I guess in our technological age, you’d have to go for your hard drive. Because I was gonna’ say my wedding albums and my honeymoon album and my hen do album…but all of those photos are actually on… on the hard drive. So I guess the hard drive. I know that sounds really naff ‘cause I’m not into technology but that’s got a lot of holidays, memories, everything on it. Cause I don’t print photos as much. God, what would…? its overwhelming, see I’m panicked. Actually, this brings us to a really interesting dream I had about six weeks ago where I was in a building, an epic beautiful... I don’t know it could have been Georgian, Elizabethan, but it was a communal building. And I was there with my mum and my sister and it was full of objects. It was almost like a big antiques centre but we lived in a part of it. And the building was falling down and residents kept running in and out rescuing their possessions. And me and my mum and my sister went to the extremes, where floors were falling beneath us and we were still going in to rescue just the next object and just the next object. And we were even thinking ‘We need to rescue that for somebody else, ‘cause that looks amazing’ and anyway, whoever was governing the collapse of this building got so irate that they were gonna’ shoot at us. They wouldn’t let us back out with these few last objects, they were gonna’ shoot us down like ‘What are you doing?!’ (laughs) But it was this real feeling of panic that these things were really important, so I definitely have a love/hate thing with attachment. Because it’s that fear of facing having to let go of something. I had to let go of a doll that I’d had since I was
about 7 that my puppy chewed up. I had to throw it away, there’s no point keeping it anymore… she annihilated it. And they’ve chewed the nose on that teddy bear that I talked about and I was really gutted but, they’re not to know as puppies. So things happen and you have to accept that they perish and… but I don’t know, I’m struggling ‘cause I’m thinking through my catalogue of things that I have in my house. EM: Nothing jumps out to you? MFB: I have so much stuff. It’s that bad, isn’t it? EM: Do you think that’s a sign of materialism or is it a sign of too many things that you associate… that you value? MFB: Yeah, I value a lot of things and it’s like when somebody says to you ‘what’s your favourite album of all time?’ or ‘your favourite film?’ but you can’t pin point one or you will but you say ‘oh and this, and this’ because there’s so many epic things that do different things for you. Like this (the cube house) is very personal, memory related. It’s not valuable as in its made of cheap wood and paper but its valuable as in it was pivotal for me to come to terms and put it together and face these things. It’s personal. Whereas, I own other things that are precious, they’re antique or they’re rare they’re just… ‘are you ever gonna’ find that again?’ They’re not worth a lot, it’s just rare and intriguing. So lots of different things and this is why it starts panicking me, thinking about objects because… there is these different attachments that you don’t think about on a day to day level until you’re questioned and you’re like ‘Oh!’ like the girl in labyrinth, where she won’t give anything away
and the lady is carrying all her possessions on her back… And then you start thinking, ‘Well what’s important? These possessions or my memories?’ or ‘the here and now?’ or ‘the future?’ (laughs) EM: Does this house also represent your family? MFB: Oh yeah I think… did I tell them that I did this? Have I shown them it? No, I haven’t shown them it. EM: Do you think if the context was still applied, if this passed onto another member of your family that lived there they’d have the same association? MFB: I mean I can’t speak for them, but I think that they might feel sad like ‘Oh this is so Michelle, facing the sadness’ They might not want it. They might feel nostalgic they might feel sad they might think ‘Oh no, I don’t want to have that hanging around.’ I don’t think my mam would like it. EM: And that’s because of the negative… memory? MFB: Association. I think she’d feel really sad that I felt the need to do it. She’d feel sad that it’s made me feel like that. That’s just kind of my mum, though. She’d feel guilty I think. EM: So do you know of anyone else’s object, in this context? Has anyone ever told you about their precious, treasured object? What about your husbands? Does he have anything?
MFB: Oh! He has a clock, that doesn’t work. A wall clock. Very retro, sunbeam burst thing that’s quite in fashion now, but that’s not why he’s got it. It’s from his grandma and grandad’s house and he used to put tinsel around it every Christmas and it just reminds him of them and that’s what he chose from the house, but it never works (laughs) I keep meaning to order an old clock mechanism just to fix it. And then he owns a mouth organ of his grandad’s which he never plays. But he likes to keep for his grandad. EM: Do either of those objects play a part in your identity like this (the house cubes) does? MFB: Yeah in that they mean a lot to him. So I guess when you’re polishing something like that, cleaning the room and I see them and I always think about his association and how it makes me feel. EM: Is it a good feeling? MFB: Yeah! It’s sad for him but its good that he’s got that connection and that bond. He was really close to his grandma and grandad. So it does affect but I guess not directly. Yeah, see this is it. Having travelled to developing countries in south America, where people don’t live like this, I guess probably not. It does on the surface feel materialistic. Because it’s bricks and mortar, but, what it allows me to do is just visualise… It’s just making a connection between memories. So I guess, maybe yeah it could (the cube house) be represented in a different way, depending on the cultural surroundings you were in or I mean, I love to think if it was Victorian times it was this
grand, Victorian house (laughs) I’ve always aspired to have one of those! But it’s this quirky little house that used to drive me nuts. My mam used to paint every ridiculous colour and it used to change and sometimes wasn’t very practical and we never knew where anything was… EM: So what’s your favourite memory of this house? MFB: The first thing that’s come to mind, I think because I’m looking at rooms, is when my dad built two bedrooms in the loft. Because we were a big family and it was a council house and a fairly big house but there was five kids and two adults. So he built these two rooms so we could all have our own separate spaces. And my mum took me to go and choose wallpaper and the colour of my bedding and accessories for my room. And prior to that there was myself, my younger brother and my younger sister sharing a room and they’d set up all these sections, they’d done it so well. So we all had our own space with those beds with furniture and desks and things underneath, they were like a high bed. My mum and dad were just amazing like that. They were really good at one-on-one time and making you feel like you had your own space and your own things. We weren’t spoilt, we were good at sharing and we valued what we had. But we all… maybe cause there was so many of us, they just wanted to make sure that we felt like we had our own little, personal space. So that was a really nice, nice memory. EM: So, how long did you live in this house?
MFB: Oh god, must have moved in there when I was about… maybe about seven or eight. Maybe? And then I left when I was eighteen. So, ten years. The one where we lived prior to that was round the corner and they decided to knock them all down and rebuild new housing. Then the one prior to that was knocked down as well. Another ex-council house that the council decided to redevelop the whole area. EM: Where did you go after this? MFB: I moved out and moved to Leeds to work for the first time and share a flat. I don’t even go to the village where that house is anymore. Which is the village I grew up in the whole of my life. So it’s changed a massive part of my life really. EM: The house before that was knocked down, did you feel the same way about this house we’re talking about? MFB: Very attached, this is the funny thing of having to print this out and come to terms with looking at the rooms. I can visualise the whole of the other house, the back garden… I can visualise everything. I can go back and remember the dress that I wore, probably because there’s a photo of this somewhere, the dress I wore in the front garden playing. I can remember the pantry in that house. I can remember my dad putting sheets up and making me a giant wendy house in the giant hallway. But, I’m sure we were sad because nobody wants to- especially a child, doesn’t want to give up their their bedroom and everything like that. But, because it was out of our hands, and maybe because I was at a different age, my
little sister or my little brother was born at that time we needed more space. So I guess, the move didn’t matter, but I think with this, even though this house must have been sold when I was about 30, so I’m an adult… you’d think that I would have already maybe detached. ‘Cause I’d been gone twelve years but no, the circumstances, this rift that was caused in the family… just… EM: Is that what made you want to recreate this house and not the other ones? MFB: Yeah. EM: That negative memory? MFB: It was facing it, facing the negative memory. Letting go of something you didn’t want to let go of. Maybe I didn’t want to let go of those other houses, that other house when I was eight. But, when you’re eight what do you do about it? And I don’t think… I think, it’s sad because the council decided to knock it down and it wasn’t us just deciding to move but… I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that this house was going. Well, it still exists for somebody else but it’s gone for us. EM: How do you feel about not seeing it (the house cubes) in a house shape? Does it feel unnatural? MFB: It just feels quite reflective of the fragmentation of the whole thing to be honest. But that was why I devised it to be put that way. Um, it does make
be put that way. It does make me want to… it just makes me look at them thinking that rooms upside down, that’s downstairs it should be upstairs, that kind of thing. Which, it kind of makes it more of a practical, engineering thing rather than an emotional thing. EM: It doesn’t make you uncomfortable? MFB: No! I guess that’s just my practical side wanting to just put it back together. But yeah, somebody else if they went through this process, they may have done something which was much more personal. They may have chosen the colour of the room, which is maybe a bit abstract but yet has more of athis is very literal. But I needed it to be that, just to face those photos (laughs) it didn’t need to be anything else, it needed to be quite raw on that level I think. EM: And you’ve done it in a way that when its fully formed its very much like a child’s drawing of a house. Like we all do, you know, a square with a triangle on top. MFB: Yeah, yeah. EM: Because they’re all a recreation of your childhood because of that. I mean we’ve talked about the history of it regarding when you were a child but is there an element of your inner child… are you trying to satisfy the child by making this? Something for you to play with?
MFB: Yeah I think there’s parts of me where I think ‘oh, I’ve never really grown up’ (laughs) but then there’s parts of me that I think I can be very serious and I’ve felt I’ve lost my inner child so maybe it’s an amalgamation. Cause it’s hard to say really because sometimes, maybe you could... I don’t know, if you were trying to psychoanalyse it, somebody could think ‘oh are you not thinking this is more reflective of ten years ago rather than, I don’t know, twenty years ago when you maybe lived there?’ Are you avoiding going right back to childhood because you can’t face the memories of it, but yet, on a day to day level, how often do you get to think about your childhood? (laughs) You’re doing responsible things, day to day things, that you don’t always reminisce. So it’s like, I don’t want to put a narrative or a theory to something that it could be, it could be just that I’m thinking too much about it (laughs), I don’t know. EM: How do these questions make you feel? Have you ever thought of any of this before? MFB: I think it was Cath (George), had questioned me about it sitting in my studio and I might have gone a little bit into what it was about. But not to this extent and um, I find it quite interesting. I mean its not pre-empted. I’ve obviously been thinking about how that house and the memory of my childhood and the situations that followed has affected me, but I’ve not thought about it to the level that we’re discussing it now. That’s why I’m a little bit wary of… It’s all, it’s all kind of thrown in the mix really. It’s like, you don’t just want to hang on to ‘Am I just thinking this ‘cause of this?’ Do you see what I mean? It’s just kind of… in the moment it could be that,
couldn’t it? EM: How do you feel about the general public looking at it and seeing it? MFB: You know what? I tend to just go with my heart. So when you said to me ‘oh you know I’m thinking about doing this exhibition based upon objects, not about art particularly just the association of objects’ I just actually thought of something that was personal to me I don’t think of the consequences of it and that tends to be how I am in my artwork and maybe that’s why I’m trying to be less subjective at the minute, because I don’t need to reveal everything about me or you know there’s different ways of approaching things. I don’t think it’s too personal. It depends what you want to do with the story, but... I’ve always felt I’ve got nothing to hide and it’s really important to talk about things like this, because it happens to people and I guess, the movies that I watch, the books that I read, the theory of psychoanalysis, different music that I listen to… I’ll always go to the ones that really leave me questioning ‘oh! That kind of underpins something that I felt about this’, so for me to deny the public the life of my story and association would be like saying, ‘well Radiohead aren’t going to make any more music’, do you see what I mean? I guess sometimes you’ve got to put yourself out there to an extent and share these things. It might speak to somebody, it might not. If somebody’s not attached to the home or have not had that experience that I’ve had or feel that ambivalence towards something or that fear, then they might just be like ‘what’s that all about?’ (laughs) or they might read it completely differently, but that’s fine.
EM: Do you think they will look at the house differently without the story? What do you think they’ll think? MFB: It’s really hard to think objectively when you know everything about it but, I mean… the fact that they’re gonna’ know that somebody has handmade it, it’s going to lead them to question ‘To what purpose? To what need?’ So that might be a way in. Or it might read something quite political or the fact that you know, it’s hard to get mortgages (laughs) these days and you know, are we going to become, you know, a generation of people who rent? Like other European countries? They might look at it from that kind of practical sense, rather than a particularly emotional kind of sense. But I think the fact that you can tell it’s a specific person’s house rather than a generic house… EM: So does it have any relationship with your art practice? MFB: Yeah, I think so. I mean I’ve had tutors ask me ‘you should maybe do something more with that, try it in a different scale’ and this, that and the other and I am working with giant things, giant scale things, as opposed to small miniatures, so I think it has had an impact. But I didn’t make it as a work of art, I made it as a way of expressing feeling and challenging something. But it was made for me in mind. I never really thought I’d exhibit it, but it’s really lovely to have the opportunity to exhibit it, just because of the story associated with it, because I think sometimes with art, when you try and be less subjective with your
thinking, you want to let them in but don’t want the work to be too fixed. Um, but yet, even if that object weren’t there and it’s just this story of what I’ve said about it… that feels very human, that speaks volumes. And sometimes I feel like you take these layers away in art. And… but yeah there’s something really… something there to talk about and to feel and… we spend so much time as artists trying to capture this… I don’t know, something, a representation to try and speak and unpick things. But yet, you could just talk about it (laughs) and share a story or share the thoughts that you haven’t come to terms with or are still trying to understand. EM: Is your practice all encompassing? MFB: Yeah. Some people, even on the course, some people have said ‘oh, it’s so personal!’ and it makes them a bit wary cause if you’ve got somebody that’s not attached to their work personally, it can be a bit uncomfortable and they can see it as a form of therapy. I don’t know any other way, I’m quite an emotional, sensitive person and I guess I like to challenge that. I like to understand why and I like to be able to express it and get other opinions, maybe change my viewpoint. All my latest work is about perspective. And there’s no clear narrative represented to have a perspective on, but it’s just this idea of looking at things from a different angle and things being fractured and complicated and unique, but yet part of a bigger, web like constellation.
EM: So when I’m looking at your art I’m looking at you? MFB: Well, I don’t think it’s that literal. But I guess, it’s walking in my mind. It’s come from- well I guess you could say, any works come from an artist’s mind, but I guess mine comes with a heart (laughs) like, yeah it’s definitely attached. They say that a work is autonomous. But, I think you have to detach yourself from objects and work all the time as artists, you do. But yet, I mean just choosing a title for something can make it come alive on its own, do you know what I mean? EM: When we look at something like Tracey Emin’s bed, that’s incredibly personal but she has still consciously chosen how to display that part of her life. MFB: Yeah. EM: Is that something you do? MFB: Yeah, I think I’m doing it more these days, ‘cause I used to feel like I overworked my work, I used to try and put too much into it because I was trying to express this abundance of feeling and confusion and it was just overloaded, so pairing back is important. EM: Is there still more to show? MFB: Oh, endless I think. It could be endless. But this is it! You look at artists who spend whole lifetimes of work addressing one concept. I’m trying to think... somebody like
Antony Gormley who looks at the space of the body and you just think, how can you keep finding new ways of approaching the same subject, but yet I guess, if you’re still coming to terms with something or you’re still trying to look at it from another point of view, it could be endless. I see a lot of the works that I’m doing at the minute as infinite. I read recently and I can’t put the name to it, that infinite is not eternity. Actually I think it was Monica from Raqs Media Collective, I think it was something I read of theirs. Infinite is not eternity and I need to unpick that. Because infinite, I just see as a longing you’re still trying to fulfil… might never be fulfilled. Even when you think you’re reaching fulfilment, oh it might need to be bigger and more. EM: Do you feel fulfilled when you look at this object? MFB: I think it does what it needed to do. And it still continues to do it, in that I don’t really need to make it again but I can keep building and unbuilding and… it kind of perpetuates the unsettled emotions. It allows me to change it and break it down and build it back up and so, some people might think ‘oh it’s a bit sadistic then why would you want to do that?’ or hold onto that, but I think you can’t take away something that’s happened. But maybe you can reflect on it differently, so it can change day to day every time you look at it. Some days I might be ‘oh yeah, I’m in a good mood and I’ve got happy memories’ and then the next day it could be completely different, but… EM: Have you learnt anything about yourself from it?
MFB: I feel stronger for doing it. I just feel like, I always try and challenge my fears because I will over think and other think and then make myself feel negative anyway because I’m probably exhausted from thinking about it, so why not try and confront things? And look at them from another perspective. So I think it helps me grow and feel stronger by facing the things that potentially are painful. EM: Where was challenging your fears coming from, where does that instinct come from? MFB: I guess it’s being fearful of fear and not wanting to be fearful of fear anymore. You just want to empower yourself and it doesn’t have to be anything pivotal. Just thinking about things you hear from people who suffer from horrendous illnesses or people, um, who are fleeing countries and then become asylum seekers, I’ve never had to face anything in life like that but yet, I guess, the challenges, the smaller challenges that I’ve had in life do really impact me emotionally and I guess to be a healthier and stronger person, to be able to understand and learn what it’s about… It’s not that I want to be some superhero (laughs) I just want to be an average person who can just talk through these things and not feel really, really sad and debilitated by them and just be able to reason a little bit or face things without feeling lonely and isolated. Is that a bit intense? (laughs) EM: Is that the way it makes you feel?
MFB: Well you’re making a little, tiny object for yourself and I guess it’s you and the object if you’re not showing it to other people and talking about it a lot it is a personal thing that makes you feel… I don’t know… EM: Safe? MFB: Yeah. Because I grew up in a big family, I always had people there it was never quiet. I’m not used to being solitary really. And this is quite a solitary thing. EM: You’re using the past tense. You say ‘you had’… is this a representation of that? Of having… MFB: Yeah, isn’t that strange? I still have a big family. EM: But you’re talking about it as if you don’t. MFB: Well this is it, I think this might be something to do with it in that I went up to see my family recently and yeah we’re fragmented, living in different places, like most people are in this day and age but, you know, there was quite a few of us there and I had a great time but, I guess, like any family where there’s been a separation, it changes something, so I guess I just think about the family different now. I see us more as… yeah, cause even when, even when I was grown up, going back to that
family home it was still like I was a child because my mum and dad are quite young at heart, so we’d still have Christmas’s and Christmas sacks and a tea party when we all got together. When you watch the Christmas movies on TV and they all come back together as a family, it does seem like, you know, you can go back to your childhood. But I guess it’s not like that now. EM: Is it a case of that you can take it apart, it becomes fragmented… does that represent your family now? MFB: Yeah, possibly. ‘Cause when you think about it… (MFB picks up the individual blocks) my room and my brother’s room… what was that? Oh that was the living room so that was a shared space, kitchen – shared. Games room, that was like, that was an addition. And they made a bar. I don’t think that the bar was that well used in the end ‘cause, um, bathroom - shared space. Mam and dad’s room, sister’s room. My brother’s room didn’t even make it on there, my other brother, my older brother. He wasn’t there for a long time at that stage and it was on the back of the house. (laughs) EM: Just added on. MFB: Yeah. And my other sister’s room isn’t on there ‘cause she’d left… she’d left as well before that point, so I guess that’s a reflection in time, literally, of who still had rooms set up from when we used to be there.
EM: So it’s a snapshot of a specific period… MFB: Yeah. EM: But doesn’t represent the whole of your family. MFB: No, it doesn’t. No…
EM: So that’s interesting because you were talking about it and I thought you only had three siblings. MFB: Yeah. EM: But, that’s because this is very specific to a very specific time MFB: Yeah. EM: And house. When in reality you have two more (siblings). MFB: Yeah there was five of us that did grow up there. EM: But because the other two didn’t live here, they’re not represented? MFB: Well I didn’t. I didn’t really live there at that time, but my room, I guess, nobody needed to be up there, so it was left as my room and the same with my brother, up in
the loft, it was always classed as his room and my sister was living there so it was still her room. Whereas, my mam and dad’s bedroom was extended into my older sister’s bedroom so that doesn’t represent her anymore. And the room at the back of the house, that used to be an old coal shed, that was made into a room and attached to the house, that didn’t exist as a bedroom anymore. I think they used to iron in there- oh no! it was when the extension was added on and it became the bar. Yeah that’s what it became. So yeah its very representational of that moment in time really…it’s like a stasis… it could have been represented before then, as a whole family. But I guess that was the reality of what was left. It’s the bones of what was left and that’s what I saw when I left that house (laughs). EM: Have you discovered anything or learnt anything from this? MFB: Yeah! EM: What have you learnt? MFB: To really look at an object objectively in a dialogue with somebody, ‘cause I think even though I’ve made it and talked about it briefly, I think that I still have some ambivalence with it. I don’t sit it on my bedside cabinet to wake up every morning. I just know that it exists and I can go back to it and challenge it a little bit now and then.
EM: What do you mean challenge it? MFB: Well it challenges me (laughs) and then I challenge myself.
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