IN THE WIDE OPEN SPACES WHERE MEN ARE MEN Installation.2014
A six-month collaborative commission with artist Amy Frampton as part of the inaugural Essex Network of Artists’ Studios Artist Commissions programme supported by Arts Council England, Essex County Council and firstsite, Colchester.
Responding to a remote and largely undiscovered site near Maldon, Essex, immersing ourselves in the location with a view to capturing the genius loci, the final presentation for the Traces exhibition comprised of collected ‘fragments’ - found objects, created narratives, a dual-channel video installation and sound collages.
An extract from the Curator’s essay that accompanied the exhibition says of the work: -
“The depiction of a particular, but unnamed, site by Sue Willis and Amy Frampton addresses the aesthetics of decay, neglect and abandonment which are all too often lost or overlooked in current well-intentioned aspirations of regeneration. ’In the wide open spaces, where men are men’, takes its form organically from the process, one of passive performance and investigation. Sequences are triggered by encounters with people and the physical space, found matter, ephemera; the formation of ideas through discussion, research, connections and observations made, and relationships formed with the site and its many contexts.
Nestled in the Essex countryside, and accessible on foot, this place is poised on the edge of revealing itself and potentially losing its mysterious and hitherto undiscovered sense of place. Its representation functions in a collective sense; uniting, intriguing and unnerving in equal measure.”
The work will be shown again during September 2015 as part of a larger ENAS Commissions exhibition at the Gibberd Gallery, Harlow.
