Making our horn collection effective

MoDiP was pleased to receive the Worshipful Company of Horners' collection of some 400 items of horn on long term loan last year and are now able to announce that we have received a grant from the Museums Association to make the collection more effective.

Horn is a themoplastic material which means that it becomes pliable when heated and can, therefore, be worked in a way similar to some synthetic plastics. Horn has been worked since paleolithic times but during the last century the craft declined. This led the Horners to adopt the emerging plastics industry in 1943 and it is for this reason the Company has chosen MoDiP, the only accredited museum with a

focus on plastics, with which to lodge its wonderful collection.

The aim of our Effective Collections grant is to increase understanding and appreciation of horn and its associated crafts and to increase access to this collection in particular. We wish to do this by lending small groups of artefacts to museums with a wide variety of specialisms including fashion and costume, military history, rural life, health and medicine, and portraiture. 

For example fashion museums might be interested in borrowing back combs, shoe horns, and brooches, whereas military museums might like to have the opportunity to show off a selection of powder horns.

Our hope is that this way a wide range of people, who, although not interested specifically in horn, will come to understand and appreciate its relevance and contribution
to their existing area of interest.

We are to be advised on this project by two consultants. Stuart Davies,who will lead in terms of curatorial expertise, and Caroline Reed who will lead in terms of methodology for reviewing the collection. You can find out more about Stuart at http://www.sdaconsultants.co.uk/. For information on Caroline's method please refer to: http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/collections-link/collections-management/reviewing-significance

Work will begin in earnest in July when the full team will meet for the first time. But if you could be interested in borrowing a small collection of horn material do get in touch.

Susan Lambert, (Head of MoDiP)

Isnaini Nash - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Isnaini Nash - BA (Hons) Fine Art, year 2

My research has led me to consider the macro / micro dichotomy of human existence on Earth in this century. Our known natural environment enlarges continuously and we have an increasing understanding of the vastness of the Universe through knowledge and observation of planetary systems, stars and galaxies. The science of physics increases our understanding of matter and it’s composition; ever decreasing particles of atoms, sub atomic particles, quarks and tachyons. I see these, often minute physical components of our world made vivid when set against a background of historical theories of existential philosophies and the art theories of the sublime.

Caspar’s luna eclipse 2010. Resin, acetate, acrylic and oil paint

With aspirations to become a jeweller before studying Fine Art, my work resembles glowing, glittering jewels. Small, crafted, other-worlds encapsulating moments of stillness. Contemplation through looking is my intention. I use resin as a material to achieve an outcome of transmitting and refracting light.

I am interested in reviving Romantic ideals established in the nineteenth century as
pertinent to the present. I can feel the cracking of our commercially driven world as I
look to a future where capitalism is irrelevant.

Caspar’s luna eclipse 2010. Resin, acetate, acrylic and oil paint

Masters of the Universe 2010. Resin, acetate, oil paint

Landing on Planet Mongo 2010. Resin, acetate and linseed oil

Yves Findling - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Yves Findling - MA Illustration

The series of characters are the result of years of observing and drawing people in places like cafes, the subway and other public spaces. Putting them into the third dimension was a major step in my artistic development. The use of plasticine gives me the possibility to model the sculptures very precisely and over a long period of time because the material does not dry. I use special modelling material which is suitable for the use in animation and I created two episodes with my characters "Pimm & Pomm" which you can see online. If you are interested in my former work and the work I create during the MA course please visit my website: http://www.yvesfindling.de/

Diva

DJ Andreas Vogel  & DJ Konrad Kuhn

Swimmer

Constantin

Veteran

Fat Cat

Julia Flatman - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Julia Flatman - Senior Associate Lecturer, Fine Art

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Julia’s current research explores the notion of ‘Material Thinking’. This is the physical exploration of ‘material’ as a means of understanding and communicating beyond language, by exploring the inherent qualities of materials, process and form and their potential to mobilize memory and convey meaning.

Julia makes work about and in response to human vulnerability; the inspiration is often a story, an old wives’ tale or a superstition. By exploiting the emotional connotations and varying the use and context of objects away from their familiar references, she hopes to engage other possibilities with no settling conclusions.

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Fran Norton - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Fran Norton - MA Fine Art

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

Literally drawing in, into and on the physical environment, my mark-making develops the interrelation of sculpture, found object and artist with the material world, and provides a means to decipher my own impulses and needs.  Arising from the multiple roles, activities and environments of everyday life, my work references motherhood, gender, abjection and the body.  I aspire to have no delineation between life and work.  For me the personal is wholly integrated with creative practice as I give tangible form to my obsessions, thoughts and emotions. 

Thinking about what I am sensing and feeling at the point of creation, I recognise core elements registering externally in my methods, imagery, form, process and behaviour. Associating these with the balance of the controlled and uncontrolled, conscious and unconscious, innate and attained, led the path of my research to Neuroscience.  I have been concerned with what really happens, in terms of physiology and cognition, when we make or respond to art and the universality of  'art as behaviour'.  

Using strategies of reversal, sculpting and burning I transformed the insubstantial into palpable objects engaging with real space.  Developing the gesture as a form of printing, I squeezed, caressed, moulded and baked materials chosen for personal resonance including found geology, wax, plants, hair, porcelain and polymer clays.  Reconciling process, material and mode of presentation with subject, my own imprint, visceral connection and process of ‘touch’ became an essential part of the work. The tactile spines, skins and fleshy forms that resulted, are imbued with a sense of body and self that summon up contradictory associations and my own compulsive behaviour.

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

Fiona Lake - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Fiona Lake - BA(Hons) Fine Art, part time year 3

Someone’s Breath

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, good or evil, we’re all fundamentally the same and we will all be forgotten – that’s the truly radical nature of transience,

Christian Boltanski, 2006

The title, Someone’s Breath, refers to the universal as opposed to the individual. It is anonymous and could therefore belong to anyone, but it is definitely the breath of someone’s son or someone’s daughter.  It does not have a monetary value based on celebrity, (as with Manzoni’s breath and excrement), but it has been given value through its preservation, temporal suspension and gallery presentation because ultimately it is, or will be, someone’s last remaining breath after death.

Using a paper bag to collect breath draws on the tradition of emotional minimalism. I hope that many viewers will link it with blowing into bags and popping them, as children. The bag then becomes a memory trigger for childhood and a life lived. Life and death, presence and absence are inexorably linked. The bag filled with breath also represents the act of breathing; of living.

The resin casing enables the indefinite preservation, or mummification, of the breath to take place. The layering effect of the resin is mimetic of ancient rock formations and enhances the visual sense of timelessness.

Someone’s Breath

Someone’s Breath

 

Yvonne Lockart - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Yvonne Lockart - BA(Hons) Fine Art, part time year 4

Kitchen Reef, 2010

As my kitchen is my workshop, I started off there, with the humble manmade kitchen sponge. I set it free to be like its natural cousins, then it grew and developed into a full blown reef, that enveloped the kitchen, using allsorts of ready made items found there. I used the oven and heat gun to melt and bond plastic items together.

Kitchen Reef, 2010

Kitchen Reef, 2010





Kitchen Reef, 2010



Will Strange - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Will Strange - Senior Lecturer, Modelmaking

Untitled

Architectural models have never been miniatures of their subject. Instead they are usually representations of the appearance of buildings. Today, developments in digital visualisation are such that it can be argued that the traditional architectural model is no longer needed to show the appearance of a building. The scale model has thus been freed to represent other qualities of the building.

Historically, models have been made to represent the form, finish or massing of a proposal as realistically as possible. The line between modelmaking and sculpture starts to be blurred once we begin to consider the possibility of representing the feel, age, textures, sound etc of an architect’s proposal.

This small sculpture is one of a collection that aims to explore the potential for using architectural modelmaking styles and techniques to produce sculpture. It makes use of acrylic sheets, block and rod, three materials commonly found in any modelmaking studio. Clear blocks of acrylic have been machined with a circular saw, sheets have been laser cut and the thin rods are shaped and cut with hand tools.

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Elise Price - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Elise Price - BA (Hons) Photography, year 3

Untitled

Exploring the boundaries of the natural and man-made, and mans relationship with the land, I created this site-specific sculpture which combines synthetic polyethylene sheeting and the natural landscape. Through the temporal state of the work and its ever changing nature due to the natural elements such as light and wind, I wanted to show the transience of the natural world.

Harriet Thomas - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Harriet Thomas - BA (Hons) Fine Art, year 2

Untitled

My practice is mainly craft based using traditional techniques with contemporary materials.  Transforming the mundane into the extravagant or extraordinary is a subject matter my work embodies. Using found objects or materials I attempt to renovate them into something other than their customary function; by means of different forms of embellishment.  Using polythene bags I create my own yarn which I use to produce my sculptures; juxtaposing mass production with a handmade outcome.  Utilising the craft of crochet allows me to transform the viewpoint of polythene bags from a negative mass, seen to have a single use, into a positive by the means of a unique sculpture.  The sculpture was in response to two units Defining Practice 2 and Negotiated Practice 1. 

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Jill Clark - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Jill Clark - BA (Hons) Fine Art, part time year 4

Sentences

I am inspired to paint visual equivalents of conversations of all kinds in an abstract manner.  I use squeegees made from various sources to create the layers and structures necessary for the painting.  The ones here are from plastic milk bottles.  After using them they are often very interesting in their own right and so I keep them and consider them to be sentences taken from the conversation.   

Sentences

Sentences

Sentences

Sentences

Gillian Goodridge - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Gillian Goodridge - BA (Hons) Fine Art, part time year 4

No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary, Amedee Ozenfant

My inspiration: everyday life.  My passion: art.

I question the traditional distinction between the realms of art and everyday life by blurring the boundary between these realms through the re-presentation of readymades, assisted readymades and everyday, commonplace experiences. 

I transform everyday objects by applying simple interventions in form and/or presentation, changing their status from commonplace objects to art objects.  By shifting the context in which the viewer encounters these objects, I aim to turn the previously banal into the exceptional and unexpected.

Underside No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Detail No Title, 2010 – 2011, Oil on plastic (Knorr Stock Pots)

Robin Mackenzie - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Robin Mackenzie - BA (Hons) Illustration, year 2



The Bucket People

The Bucket People came about from exploring traditions that may be wasted or lost in the future, activities such as wassailing, conker fights and real afternoon tea.  These, and many other old customs are such a huge part of our culture and heritage, it would be such an awful shame if they were forgotten.

The pieces are of course based around the plastic buckets; I wanted to offset these old traditions with the new and the colourful.  This is coupled alongside the acrylic paintings; they stare out from a different time, wanting you to join with them, to live and breathe tradition once again.

You did do it with plastics

Back in February MoDiP put out a call for work produced by staff and students at the AUB.  We were amazed by the response we had and have put together a fantastic display alongside our exhibition You can do it with plastics.

We would like to thank every one who submitted work towards this exhibition and will be featuring each artist's work in future blog posts.