Sporadic Assemblage

"To appreciate the patchy unpredictability associated with our current condition, we need to reopen our imaginations." -Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Sporadic Assemblage is an ongoing collaboration initiated by an imperfect pairing of artists during the pandemic lockdown whose curious correspondence led to the significance of plants as a model to encourage the sharing of resources and building of ‘sporadic, collaborative communities’ as a means of survival.  Through the physical exchange of abject remnants of nature collected from daily walks and cycle routes in disparate locations, spontaneous assemblages of materials, sounds and images have evolved.  The gifted fragments are sent through the postal system and respectively transformed through a reciprocal alchemy; the assemblages pro-creating as they grow, like plants in bundles, roots or clusters to form sculptures, soundscapes and a documented archive of material thinking and making.

In the opening chapter of her book, 'The Mushroom at the End of the World,' Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing describes the layout of her text to be "…like flushes of mushrooms that come up after a rain: an over-the-top bounty; a temptation to explore; an always too many. The chapters build an open-ended assemblage, not a logical machine; they gesture to the so-much-more-out-there. They tangle with and interrupt each other- mimicking the patchiness of the world I am trying to describe."
Much like the chapters of Tsing’s book, this is an open-ended collaboration, exploring and documenting the artists’ respective local environments. Through a collection and exchange of found material and archived experiences, each artist then creates a reciprocated response.

Monica Perez Vega explores the inherent properties, forms and structures of the small finds she is gifted sporadically by post; shredding up a soft wood piece to use as an aggregate in a bio-material form; setting pressed wild flowers in translucent bio-plastic sheets to create a translucent skin over an armature which would become a ‘patchy assemblage’ of salvaged failures; a new sculptural entity replete with creative potential; an unforeseen adaptation of matter, nourished by the conditions of collaboration.

"What do you do when your world starts to fall apart? I go for a walk, and if I’m really lucky, I find mushrooms. Mushrooms pull me back into my senses, not just -like flowers- through their riotous colours and smells but because they pop up unexpectedly, reminding me of the good fortune of just happening to be there. Then I know there are still pleasures amidst the terrors of indeterminacy.” (Tsing, 2017)

Steph Shipley pursues the notion of heterotopia to convey the sense of place through its capacity for otherness, evoked by the physical setting in the moment of collection and by the gifted recordings of her collaborator. 'Wind Chamber' is a soundscape derived from the temporal narrative and embodied encounter of distinct places; the domestic garden, an unkempt parkland, remote tracks, ruined landscapes.  The sensory mapping of such spaces creates a ‘polyphony’ of sounds assembled through the collaborative process of exchange, reflection and response. 

By prolonging the audio fragments during the editing process with other found sounds, an alternative, imagined space is created in which both artists have been present - remotely and con-jointly - to form an echo or wind chamber; a dark protected place, a means of communal-evolving from the generous acts of correspondence and the sharing of resources.

The sporadic, spontaneous assemblages continue as the artists accumulate from each new encounter and small find.  As the project gathers momentum, their conversation turns to how their documented processes, archives and artworks might emerge from their temporary incubation. Flushes of possibilities exist, such as an immersive dark space to experience sound with large scale projections of the places that provoked collections; an insulated glass lodging for archive material – writings, research and reflection; preserved fragments of earthy matter; analogue photographs, experimental vessels, the fabric of packaging; and the structural assemblages, suspended or convened with space for the viewer to navigate, to adjourn and to return.

This is a collaboration with Steph Shipley:
https://www.artconnect.com/profile/steph-shipley

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Monica Perez Vega