Raising the Voice: Sculptural and Spoken Narratives from the Flat Sheet

Hannah Clarkson

This exposition explores ideas of narrative and storytelling through sculptures and texts raised from a flat sheet, a kind of visual and spoken poetry which is both particular and multiple. In this paper, the key area of investigation will be the relationship between sculptural and spoken narratives in my practice. This is engaged with in four main areas: • The flat sheet and the fold as sites for storytelling • Multiplicities inherent to storytelling • Architecturality and the space between bodies and buildings • Words, text and the voice, and their relationship to sculpture I explore the role of the architectural in the space between sculptural and spoken narratives, both of which are forms that begin with a flat sheet. The research also looks at how one might write about art in order to expand understanding but not reduce it to one meaning, writing around or through objects so as to leave gaps for the imagination and other narratives. The importance of the voice in the telling of these narratives is investigated, as well as the relationship between bodies and buildings.

Introduction // Background // Theory and Context // Methods // Discussion i. Bodies and Buildings // The Pleating Papers // Discussion ii. Spaces and Voices // Other Stories // Conclusion // References and Image List

Introduction

Beginning with the notion of the flat sheet as an origin from which narrative unfolds, in this exposition I investigate relationships between sculptural and spoken modes of storytelling in my own and others’ art and writing practices. I focus on the following:

The flat sheet and the fold as sites for storytelling
The multiplicities inherent to storytelling
Architecturality and the space between bodies and buildings
Words, text and the voice, and their relationship to sculpture

Key questions include:

How might one write about art in order to expand understanding without reducing meaning to a single interpretation?
How can one write around or through objects so as to leave gaps for the imagination, whereby other stories may emerge?
How can experiential forms of narrative relate to material objects, and how can language and the voice connect to the physical?
What role does the architectural play in the space between sculptural and spoken stories?

cont. >>

The materials and methods of my making and writing practices form a central discussion. Additionally, I examine the importance of the voice in my work and how the fleeting nature thereof allows for multiple and various narratives in the absence and presence of words, which also engage with architectural space.

To provide context, I explore existing norm-critical methods of writing about art. While I am aware of conventions of art historical and biographical narrative in art-writing, I do not analyse specific traditional forms of art-writing (that is, writing about art) but instead reference texts that criticise these norms, namely Mieke Bal’s writing about the work of Louise Bourgeois, and Rich Texts by John Kelsey. I refer also to the artists Phyllida Barlow, Louise Bourgeois and Edmund de Waal, and literary theorist Steven Connor.

Alongside these contextual discussions are excerpts from my own texts, The Pleating Papers, and accompanying images; examples of my sculptures; and stories from viewers inspired by their interactions with the sculptures.

In this exposition, I propose another way of writing or talking about art; a way of making rather than telling stories. My proposition is neither the right nor the better way, by any means: it is an alternative way, more relevant to my own practice and work, which acknowledges the complexities of relationships between various narrative forms.

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