'Hammer'
Making, Breaking and Re-making the Hand-casts
'Hammer' examines that relationship to objects and captures the different ways we use, and re-use materials for self expression. The full film is 40 minutes long. Please get in touch if you want a link to it.
This is a trailer...
Living at the care home meant Claire and I were around the work we made and make with residents - the drawings, casts and writing that we make with residents and we got to experience how it 'lives' and operates in the space of the home in the hours, days and weeks after it is made. The most significant part of our work happens 'in the moment' - creating a connection with people but as visual artists, we use materials to start these conversations and to see where they might go. The residency was a great opportunity to reflect on ideas about purpose, ownership and collaboration.
Often what is made is very quickly forgotten, and can create confusion - where did it come from? Who made it etc. At other times small attachments are made to objects, sometimes surprisingly small, seemingly insignificant objects are coveted or returned to over and over for re-examination.
The residency gave us space to reflect on our relationship to these objects - drawings, poems, paper dresses and hand-casts etc and we have a renewed faith in the value of objects even when their initial intent or creative beginnings are forgotten. Embracing and exploring the potential for and process of an object changing in meaning and purpose is something that working in a care setting with older people offers.