Anji Archer- Guest Speaker

Today Anji Archer; an installation artist came in and spoke about her work.

-She studied textiles but had an interest in Fine art and the conceptual side of displaying something with a meaning behind it
-Her work was based on exploring, investigating and investing space
-She finished her degree showcasing an installation final piece. This was a house she found in St. Albans that she constructed installation pieces in each room of the abandoned interior of the building. Before Archer did this she had to make sure the house was in good enough condition for the public to interact and visit the space. Archer wanted to construct these in a homely space because she was an admirer of her childhood, so she used it to her advantage and used objects to signify a homely home, indicating elements of her past childhood memories and what she did whilst she was growing up.

‘Welcome Home’ was a piece by Archer based on home life (above) and the memories of growing up as a child. She decided to make a room ‘fun’, interesting and welcoming to bring back life to the room. She wanted to bring back the playful aspect of growing up, and the presence of a family living in the building.
Archer even thought down to the most tiniest of marks, like pouring flour down the sink and writing letters in it, just like a child would accidently play around with things they shouldn’t of and play around with it. It reminds me of memories and past imprints our life and experiences have been left marked on us, helping to mould and shape who we are as individuals.
She added elements to see if the public would touch and interact with the work, by having boundaries which they could easily cross. This is what Archer liked. For people to cross over that barrier and engage with the pieces she laid out rather than just looking at it.
– Took a year to find the house and 2 months to create the space
Each of the rooms had a theme as if someone or some people were living there.

Nursery
– Had an abandoned pram
– A cot which was a little different to the usual type. It was a triangular shaped cot, getting rid of it’s original purpose and function
– A cast of a doll in the pram
– Finger knitting was displayed in a way that it had just been made (This relates back to Archer’s childhood and representing creativity)

Cat’s cradle-2006
– Left a chalkboard and chalk to see if the viewers would cross the ‘barrier’ and interact with the pieces in front of them.

Bedroom
– This room originally had no floor. It was a black and white room which worked more better giving a more simplistic and minimal feel to the room
– The sheets from the bed were rested against the window, letting the environment take control of the object inside the house. ( Making something we know and relate as an object that makes up a home, become un homely which we no longer feel familiar with).

Children visited the house and unexpectedly left their experience by leaving poems behind.
I thought this was a really nice aspect as it relates to Anji portraying her childhood and the children leaving poems behind shows how it reacts to the very people she once was. Now these children are leaving a part of their childhood behind with the building and her work.
A memory within a memory.

Little Sister Poor Soul-2005

This was about women using objects that signify a woman’s touch like embroidery, clothes and other mementoes and memorabilia.
– Anji Archer’s friend gave her some photos from a car boot sale of women who once attended a mental hospital (Shenley’s-Radlett), Hertfordshire.
– She used words and phrases which were sewn into these objects relating to women attaching them to the installation, like women being attached to a specific object or thing; much like these women and the Women’s mental hospital.

Wake up time created in 2008, was created in a barge house two years after Archer found it to display her most personal piece.
– It was a piece based on bereavement around her husband’s death.
– She used a poem that he wrote within the work
Archer wanted to question that when people are gone and what is left behind after they had passed away.
– She got her husband white shirts he always wore and placed them in the middle of the room, with wire around it to corner it off. A boundary which could not be crossed
This was due to how her husband died in a car crash and the road was cornered off, not allowing her to cross over and see and try and help him, as well as getting there before it was too late.
– On these shirts she added text of what she felt and her emotions of how she still feels from him not being around.
– plaster casts were created of objects that were associated with her husband along with a metronome ticking to represent time and how time goes by so quickly and us as people not being able to control it.

‘Wake up time’, 2008.

As Anji Archer was talking us through this piece, I felt her grief and her emotions build up inside of myself. I thought that she was allowing people she barely knew, know about her personal life letting down boundaries and showing her vulnerability. I feel like she was a strong person to let us in on her life, making me feel as if I somehow knew her that little bit better. At one point after seeing it I felt quite emotional as I could relate to her feelings, as us as individuals have been through not the same but a similar situation that make us a miss a specific person when they are gone. It makes me realise value and acknowledge the people around me in my presence today and not to take life for granted.

Replica
– Idea of having fun with interaction
– youthfulness and childlike
– These were life size puppets that were hand and machine sewn
Characters
-constructed to move around with voice boxes attached to them to make them more life like
-Archer was intrigued by how the public would react to these

By Whom committed
-A human sized bird cage with printed ribbon
-This resembled a Victorian prison during this era as she had prison records from London to help influence her installation piece.

Mural- (Time Again)
– This was on a large green near the road side in Stevenage (relating back to how her husband died in car crash)
– She painted his face (Image From Wake up time) on the grass.
– Archer wanted to represent her husband in memory and how the environment much like how our mind works, of the fact of something left to deteriorate, decay and wash away just like how memories start to fade and distort over a long period of time.
This was another piece if felt personally attached to because I am strongly attached to memories much like Archer. I felt visually, theoretically and emotionally attached to her work which for me makes an artist. To be able to engage with the person through their work on so many different levels and making you feel many types of emotion which Anji Archer did.