We reflected on the concept of “the launderette” as an umbrella for investigating voices, ghosts, communities, and languages. Our Co-Lab was theoretically framed by Hauntology and Hal Foster’s “Artist as Ethnographer”.
Throughout our two weeks we spun our ideas together through loops, repetitions, and iterations akin to the launderette’s wash, spin, and repeat cycles.
At the beginning of our residency, we input provocations on how we could approach collaboration. We shared and challenged initial works, starting with visual research on how ‘The Launderette’ sits within the local urban environment. We speculated on the fiction: “if the walls could talk, what would they say?”. Then started to formulate ideas of how to transmit sounds through objects and the fabric of the building.
Alongside this, we embraced a willingness to embody a circular methodology by drawing large meditative circles. An intimate text of a list of instructions on How to wash laundry in a Laundromat intertwined with personal memories was written.
Rapidly our conversation and work evolved. We talked about how to go beyond the whiteness of the space and explore its permeability as the noise of daily urban life infiltrates from the outside.
As our works began to form, the conversation turned to focus on fragments, the granular aspects of the pieces where permeability, inaccessibility, and the unmoored take form. Through the cycles, circles, and repetitions of these fragments, what new works could unfold? What little you could write and still read it?… What happens when you vocalize fragments of sound?… How much can an image suffer and fade from its source? How much can you let go of the meanings of words to narrate images?
Each of us created works that were outside of our normal practice, informed and nurtured by the other collaborators. This made The Launderette residency a special and welcome experience.
Maria Jose Carvallo: mariacarvalloarrau.com
James Norman: jamesnormanartist.weebly.com
Rachael Nee: rachaelnee.art
Margot Minnot-Thomas: margueriteminnot-thomas.com
