Extended Research - Natasha Macvoy

M: I wondered if you would be able to comment on how you consider your installations and what the audience then brings to this?

N: The audience are the final performers in my work, and I try to present work on many levels. There are different entry points into the work with no hierarchy attached. I cannot predict, nor would I want to steer a singular reading, as the narrative each person brings to the work will influence how they see it. I have multiple stories attached to my pieces, and I try to share observations and pieces of writing that pushes the work open. I want people to bring their stories, but I hope that my work also nudges them to look again. With Notes in the margin, the attached audio was available to hear via a single cup headphone and was also sent out with a small ceramic motif to those who bought it from my series of Alternative Publications - this audio is a 2 min edit of a 20 min script - a different edit would have made different connections.

In life, how you are affects how you experience the world. I think about this whenever I install an exhibition - how people reach the work and the space it is in, how it presents itself and what they go away with all impact their understanding and time with the work.

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I like the idea that Natasha actively makes many entry points into the work and the fact that there is no hierarchy to that, with no one thinking or thing being more important than another or the sense that something is subsidiary. I think Natasha highlights that an installation is an active thing, with comments like ‘pieces…that push the work open’ or ‘nudges them to look’ in an open-ended way. There is an encouragement for a narrative with the audience, of being and encountering and the connections you can make, and, in that way, it gives the installation a sense of feeling mobile. 

For me, this level of real-life and personal communication with an artist who influences my research has added another layer to my core research. It extends it beyond the untouchable areas of theory books or web pages, it is a real connection and therefore more meaningful. It has changed the way I will consider artist research going forward. By making it a generous space for both of us, our communications have led to insights I hadn’t considered before and new territories for considering the body – my own, the body of my work, and the bodies of its audience. 

Our lines of communication will stay open, and I hope to stay in touch with Natasha. One thing looking into Natasha’s practice emphasised was noticing the artists she is surrounded by, has exhibited with etc. – they are all artists I am also currently looking at and being influenced by, including Sandra Lane, Lilah Fowler, Sara Barker and Jesse Darling. This showed me that I clearly belong to a current and relevant ‘clan’ and is something very reassuring in being able to contextualise and apply my practice in relation to a wider active field.

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My observations of Notes in the margin are that she has successfully combined the capability of the repeated motif, the relationship between 2d, 3d and back again. She has combined the space of the wall with 3d forms and gestures with a real sense of humanness hanging around. Not to mention the direct relation to the use of the colour pink. She is achieving a feeling of mobility while the works conversely stay still, that performative aspect is present. Every motif and object is in conversation with the next, precisely considered, yet effortlessly playful. The experience of being within and amongst the works feels important. Despite the fact I have not seen these works in the flesh, I still get this sense of looking and seeing and being with this installation. These are all aspirations that I want for my own works. 

I do not expect this to lead to professional opportunities in the future, that was not why I reached out to Natasha. But in terms of building a more personalised network, someone to aspire to and a willingness to stay in touch is more than enough at this current time. For now, it is enough to know that work like the work I want to make is definitely out there, and these are artists I want to rub shoulders with.