Previous AA2A Artist

Sian Pile

Year:
2008-09
Project summary:

Play Is A Social Act

For psychologist D.W.Winnicott, the space between a mother and young child, which becomes the space between the individual and society, is the space where play begins and develops, and which leads eventually to cultural life. Play is essentially unstructured, creative, subversive, sometimes violent and destructive. Play provides a site for fantasy, escape, a safe way to explore fears and desires. 'The opposite of play isn't work. It's depression', Brian Sutton-Smith, Dean of Play Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Where do children play? They are increasingly absent from community life. This is a study of secret spaces children have made as well as those made for them by adults. The way I work is to amass images, sketches, diary notes and historical and academic research and also to experiment with printing methods to find the vocabulary which feels right for the subject. I like to disorientate the viewer, to describe moments that exist outside the regular flow of time. Susan Trangmar writes about 'a liminal state, like a pause between different kinds of thought; a no man's land, an open space in which anything can happen'. My images often operate in the half open space between the private and the public, depicting landscapes embedded with personal resonance.

The AA2A grant will give me a challenging creative environment and the space and facilities to experiment with printing and processes that are integral to my work. The magical alchemy of the early platinum process has enabled me to use photography as a tool for drawing, allowing a sensuous description of detail, of memory and personal history to seep into the image of making. The cost of this is prohibitive and I need time and space to find other methods which I can employ for this project.

'In Memory: The Playground'
C-print, 40x50cm