Traditionally, in these blog posts , I try to reflect in some way what is going on in the studio , in my head or in the wider world. The world is in an appalling state at the moment and I am not in Belfast, I am in France for the second part of my residency at La Coupole. The thoughts in my head are pulled in all directions and so, for now, I will start with the positive news that just before I left for France, I found out that I was one of the recipients of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Major Individual Awards funded by the National Lottery. This award buys me time and space to develop a body of new work over the coming year and some of this work will be based on my research residency at La Coupole. As I work through the archive at La Coupole, it is not lost on me how the past persists into the present, how things transform from youthful imaginings of hope to more mature materialistions that have deadly consequences on a global scale. A boy dreams of building a rocket to go the the moon and as a man he realises his dream based on his knowledge of building ballistic missiles - the V2 'revenge weapon. Many of the people who were forced to assist his ambitions were expendable - forgotten - just as he forgot his past. Today, other men with other ambitions, dream of going to Mars, of colonising space, of re-writing their pasts to create a new narrative of themselves for the future. What is lost in the process? Why must those who have no choice be used as a pathway for someone else's idea of progress and profit? Moving forward and holding in balance light and shade, past and present, I hope to create new work that will still be relevant in a fast changing world.
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