This sculpture was made for Time, Space, Existence, the name of the ECC Venice Architectural Biennale of 2023. It is entitled Ginnel – a term which describes a particular kind of narrow alley or passageway between terrace houses, uniquely found in the north of England.
Kara, originally from London, first encountered this kind of architecture and its corresponding dialect term when she first moved to the Pennine Hills in Lancashire. As an architectural feature, it is one of the identifying characteristics of the industrial heritage of northern England.
Back alleys are transitory routes that serve as private spaces, shared secrets and treasured environments of human scale that represent territory for a very local community. The sculpture captures moment, passage, traces of human presence and archaeology referenced through the fluctuations, feetmarks and scuffs that frame its surface. It is distinguished by the passage of time; firstly, in the making of the clay and in the histories that are frozen within the imprints formed.
Parallels are drawn between the narrow venetian passageways, the waterways and bridges that are encapsulated by the built environment; spaces that chorale bodies of people and direct their collective movement.
The area for the sculpture is a defined space in the Palazzo Bembo on the side of the Grand Canal in Venice, edged by architecture and to points of cultural demarcation. Underfoot, the substance of the earth, the soil and substrates that support the urban framework are living, fluid and malleable. The clay original reflects that organic energy that resides in natural materials. It succumbs to human interaction and, through its resistance, participates in the formation of a rhythm in relief. The artist’s footprints are intended to be repetitious and regimented, a beaten path given structure by the care of the maker that echo the geometric pattern of the ginnel’s cobbles as well as the rhythmic patterns of rippling water in the venetian canals. Kara is interested in the synergy between the ebb and flow of human movement; syncopated and collective, and the passage of water; pressure points, power, movement, disruption, repetition and rhythm.
The clay becomes a membrane that yields to the caress of the foot. The sculpture is a skin, grafted over the living form of the earth. It breathes and moves in harmony with the life energy of the maker. Its semiotic representation is associated with living form and has a history in figurative representations of the body.
Time
Ginnel was produced during a publically accessible performative process over a specified period of time. The piece was made from wet clay and constructed gradually and methodically using Kara’s body creating a sculptural floor-based relief. The sculpture was left in situ for the duration of the exhibition; 9 months, in which time, the piece gradually dried and cracked, unpredictably, to reveal fracture and pressure points.
The installation was framed by 2 large drawings which served as original, to scale, preparatory ‘sketches’ for the subsequent installation.
Installation
Drawings
These large scale drawings were initially made as experimentations in preparation for the Ginnel relief floor sculpture. They were made to scale in order to see if I could effectively represent the rhythmic movement of water through the canal conduits using my feet as a way of connecting the flow of water and human passage. The resulting effects of the suspended graphite powder on water provided an additional quality that enriched the installation. I decided to display them together.
(I Step to the Side Again)
Charcoal, graphite, water.
(Dancing Water)
Charcoal, graphite, water.
