Studio Practice

University of Plymouth, Royal William Yard.

November 2017

1 Ton rubble bags & Cardboard boxes.

Structure & volume has been tested with 1 ton rubble sacks by filling them woth previously printed boxes. The light, movable sacks allow the mobile structures to fill a space easily & quickly. The work was initially made & tested in the studio, then taken outside for further study. Royal William Yard (RWY) has a predominately industrial aesthetic & has been an Urban Splash renovation/building site for the last decade. This place was a great first test for the work in an urban environment. Pulling the sacks into place at various locations close to the studio was easy & provided a great insight into the scale of the work with regards to studio/gallery & outside/exterior architecture. For now the sacks have an architectural print on them, the result of a test the previous week where screen printing was tested out onto their surface. Current research on this project will lead to a final print idea, potentially using the inside & the outside of the bags.

So far with only 5 bags, large volume can not be achieved however it has shown that for a theoretical exhibition no less than 15 bags would be a start. An additional volume was achieved when one of the bags was taken apart at the seams & used to drape over a stack of boxes. This form changes the dynamic of the bags as they become less mobile.

A combination of the two works well.

Outside of the studio various combinations of placement & stack size work well. Particularly the taller stack of 4 in front of an arch. The achieved hight doesn't look heavy despite the concrete imagery & industrial nature of the objects. At the same time they do not look fragile. Perhaps precarious describes the taller stack better.