There are always multiple possibilities for an element to be used and placed within a space, creating different relations, contexts and counterpoints. Normally an exhibition only allows for one of these possible solutions to be realised, but the process room, by its nature and close proximity to the studio, allows for a rotation and re-cycling of work over the two week period of the show.
The wooden structure acts as both a way to slow down entry to the space and also as a site or stage for other pieces of work that will be made on or fixed to it. The other pieces are made from things lying around or which caught Barham’s attention in Dublin – rolled up magazine pages with their found colours and textures, sellotape and paper, postcards, paint buckets, wood and cement. These simple materials have an immediate familiarity and tactility. They are ‘everyday’ and therefore often overlooked. Our lives exist in the everyday but the act of looking closely at it is subversive.
The postcard of the old entrance to Coombe Lying-in Hospital is for visitors to pick up and take away – a souvenir. Making the image into a postcard attempts to draw attention to something that is passed by. But the postcard itself is a throwaway object, a piece of ephemera, replaying the observed/overlooked, given and taken away.
