Opportunity: The Found Project

The call has gone out for artists to submit their work to an exhibition with a difference.  As the Facebook page states, ‘…one will not have a comprehension of this gallery…the ‘gallery’ will manifest in a range of everyday locations’.  Her curiosity piqued, photographer Claire Griffiths interviewed Professor Ball, the mind behind The Found Project, to find out more.

Claire Griffiths: Can you tell us what The Found Project is and where it came from?
Professor Ball: The Found Project has been conceived as one project of many that examines the ‘everyday’. This investigation is an ongoing exploration into how one is able to reframe the notion of the everyday.
My practice has been developing through a series of commissions and projects, meaning The Found Project has organically grown out of this enquiry. Some outcomes have focused more on a poetical response, others have touched on humour. The Found Project lies between the two. It is providing something not of the ordinary to a very ordinary situation. Therefore it has the potential to become that of intrigue and mystery.

C.G: What are your background and influences?
P.B: I graduated in 2008 with BA(Hons) Fine Art, then moved to London to work in a range of gallery environments. It was during this time that I decided to follow my instinct to study a second degree, this time in architecture. It was during architectural training that I felt less restricted in the studio, meaning my practice could develop in any direction I felt necessary; developing my own set of briefs and engaging externally from university with public art commissions. So throughout, my creative need to make has always been apparent.
I have realised that to limit one’s practice to a single discipline would be foolish. Instead, I work across a wide range of disciplines as to what feels appropriate at the time; exploiting a range of expressions. I like to think of myself as a ‘maker’. Work includes painting, drawing, experimental film, photography, hand-cut illustration, collage, collaboration, performance, sculpture, curating, writing.
Mostly I am drawn to something which has philosophical content; a basis which allows a poetical narrative to manifest. My making philosophy is ‘to explore the poetics of the everyday through a multidisciplinary approach’.
There is a strong influence of the ‘found’ in my practice, something with an unknown narrative. Influence can come in any form from the banal to the wildly eccentric. Being inquisitive of things external to oneself is imperative.

C.G: You have stated that the exhibition will manifest itself in a variety of ways? Can you advise what they might be or give us a teaser?
P.B: The gallery can be seen as an event or performance, particularly due to its experimental nature, which is the exciting part. I can merely predict what I think may happen, but there is a beauty in the unknown. Indeed, the performance can be examined from two points of view. Firstly, the person who opens the envelope (although it is not their property, and it will not say ‘open me’) will become an ad-lib performer. The second instance examines the documenter as the performer – as it is them who is creating a conscious choice; what to frame and what to leave unseen.
So the gallery will manifest in a series of stages, the submissions, the placement of work in a different location, the actual performance, the documentation, and the unknown outcome.

C.G: Is this a ongoing exhibition or will there be a final show?
P.B: As soon as the deadline is up on the 14th Feb 2013, work will then be selected for the gallery, which of course could be in any location. The gallery in essence is the space between the viewer and the envelope with the piece of artwork inside. It questions what a gallery format should be. The selected artworks will be placed separately in different locations between February and March, so the ‘gallery’ will only ever take place in one place at one time.
The completion of this part is the completion of the performance. The final show as such, will be the documentation of this event. This is yet to be proposed as it could be seen as a new body of work, or a continuation to the event. To plan this now would fail to recognise the beauty in the unexpected. To neglect the unknown would be criminal.

C.G: Finally, what do you hope for the outcome?
P.B: The gallery event will be recorded inconspicuously via photography and film work as a documentation of the experimental approach. This in turn will form a new body of work to be displayed in another format, in another gallery setting, possibly a traditional gallery setting.
I could say what I anticipate for the outcome, but this would be putting a preconceived idea onto the performance, which means that the project would be deemed a pointless activity. What I will say is that there are a set of rules, these being:

1. One must restrict the dictated
2. Observe and record natural patterns of human behaviour
3. Only after the event shall one analyse the potential for future use.

For further detail, including how to submit to the project, visit the Facebook page.