Clare Twomey Exhibitions

Lost Rituals

The Gibside National Trust Estate, Gateshead September 2003
Lost Rituals is a temporary site-specific installation. Fired and Non-Fired Porcelain.

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 2 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 3 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 4 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 5 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 6 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 7 click to enlarge

Lost Rituals by Clare Twomey photograph 8 click to enlarge

The Stables at Gibside- Lost Rituals Gibside stable

At the stable there is evidence of the beauty and grandeur of this building. This evidence of history possesses great poetry. The loss of the buildings function, itself a monument to its last day of glory. There is a narrative inside the building; it runs around the empty walls. There are traces of the rituals that were made everyday. The silence that now sits in the building holds these stories it exudes past lives and the Gibside Estate. The lost histories, stories, and rituals are clues to the function and the people who lived here.

Temporary Craft Commission - Clare Twomey
The Site at Gibside Stables

Time and the progression of time.
Time that erodes has become my interest in the site at gibside.

There is evidence of the beauty and grandeur of this building as well as the insensitive modern intervention such as the bricking up of the windows with breezeblocks. This dilemma of history possesses great poetry. The demands of the modern against the beauty of the past. The loss of the buildings function, itself a monument to its last day of glory. When it would have exuded life and its role in the running the Gibside Estate. The lives of the people who worked in the building would have been an addition to the vibrant function, as well as the horses and all of their tack and carriages. A building of work that vitality flowed through is now hollow and dysfunctional but actively that exudes its past.

I am curious about the lost histories, stories, and rituals in contrast to newly delivered redundancy of the building. The histories of the people and the functions of the building. I will make a work that erodes with time. A vulnerable work that will activity disintegrate day by day. It will allude to the continual battle that The Stables have with time and the elements. Creating fragility that will be empathetic to the buildings lamentable beauty.The work to be placed on the main lawn in front of the stable buildings. The work will be made by using non-fired porcelain It will be moulded into forms that reflect the shapes of the windows and doors of the stable building. Placing these directly on the lawn infront of the building will create a mirror image that appears empty, sealed and mute.

These reflections of the building mirrored on the grass in porcelain will be three dimensional, exact to that of the original windows and the doors in all dimensions. As if the constructs were pushing themselves up from the ground.

These soft replicas of the windows/doors/architectural features would be left open to the elements to erode. As this soft clay is pushed away by the wind and the rain and the every day conditions, a new image will be revealed.

The solid mass of clay that forms the replica windows/doors/architectural features has high fired porcelain objects buried within in it. As the soft clay is washed and weathered away these objects become visible. Day by day more of the objects will be visible as the clay is dissolved. This will continue until all the buried objects are exposed and no soft clay is remaining.

The beautiful objects that are selected for this work embody the knowledge of the histories that once flowed through the windows and doors. They created part of the every day activities and become a language of visual connections. These objects that have been buried deep inside the soft and vulnerable clay will be a resilient high fired porcelain that will be left exposed. As the clay continues its disintegration these objects revealed will build a story of the previous lives of the building. Horseshoes and tack, tools and nails, cups and jugs, handles and objects of personal history will be seen. Once these are fully exposed they will create a now subtle reflection of the building. But one that connects to the consumption of stories of lost times and functions.