INSTALLATION
As part of my artistic practice I occasionally create installations around a theme. For this I use the pseudonym ‘Division Bell’
As an example here are images and an introductory text from a recent installation at the White Box Gallery
THE GREEN AND THE GOLD, a Division Bell installation.
The most pressing issue of the 21st century is the seemingly insoluble conflict between the green concerns of conserving the very viability of the global environment and the ever more urgent imperatives of commercialism, finances and profit margins. The green of conservation and the gold of capitalist enterprise are in a struggle to find common ground. This confrontation is a struggle for survival. Division Bell has created an installation where the green and the gold have been brought together, but in the most fragile of ways.
The display of green 19th century glass with gold embellishments prompts us, in an oblique way, to consider what is felt to be of value and to encourage the seeking of resolutions to this most pressing dilemma of our age. Each vessel is different, but all have been made to contain and to hold. In this sense each is a global image in itself. Each example might appear as both precious, (though mostly of little commercial value in today’s market) and vulnerable, as well as being the result of the skill, creativity and sense of beauty which human beings bring to the world in our desire for harmony. The proximity of a display of hammers in various juxtapositions to the glass introduces a worrying note and suggests the fragility of this alliance.
The glass vessels in this installation were made during the 19th century. It was a time, post-industrial revolution, when capitalism and industry were at its height and when the growth of wealth was seen as producing, at the same time, a better environment: a global outreach which would benefit the whole of mankind, and a new alliance with the processes of the natural world. This installation questions how global responsibility and positive ambitions of connectivity can be again a cause for excitement and hope.
The presentation embodies a further aspect. Every vessel in the installation has an image of the Lily of the Valley upon it. The traditional symbolism of this flower encourages hope since it is associated with a return to happiness, protection of natural beauty, and a protection of gardens from disruptive impulses. It is held to encourage visions of heaven, aiding man to see a brighter future. It also symbolises Eve’s tears shed after she was expelled from the Garden of Eden. The flower is also in honour of the mythical goddess Maia, the daughter of Atlas, who gives her name to the month of May and is an earth goddess who encourages nurturing as well as growth.
