Natasha Joseph

“You make an open- ended proposition and the audience completes it somehow. That’s what you hope and artwork to be- a constantly living thing.”

Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker is one of Britain’s best loved and most acclaimed contemporary artists. Using transformation, playfulness and storytelling, she engages with important issues of our time, be it violence, ecology or human rights.

Thirty Pieces of Silver

The show opens with the radiant Thirty Pieces of Silver hanging spotlit in darkness. The pieces include plates, spoons, candlesticks, trophies, cigarette cases, teapots and trombones. Every piece was crushed by a steamroller and arranged into groups, which were suspended to hover a few inches above the ground, resurrecting the objects and replacing their lost volume. I found this installation very fascinating, especially because of her perspective of seeing crushed objects as transformation and not destruction. It was her first large scale project feature which she described as ‘cartoon death’ as she has long been fascinated by the violence of cartoons like flattening Tom, Jerry filled with bullet holes and Road Runner falling off a cliff.

Cold Dark Matter: an exploded view

This installation is one of her most iconic works. It connections between the world of science, space and the everyday. She collected and suspended the blackened, twisted objects from transparent wires in the Tate Gallery. These were lit with a single light bulb that hung in the centre of the installation. The apparently floating debris might have been the result of the Big Bang, a terrorist attack or be a 3D model demonstrating chaos theory. The dramatic shadows on the walls added drama on the walls which made it very interesting to look at. Walking around the sculpture made me feel something unexplainable, like I could understand what was on her mind while she put it together.

Case study 1- Donald Judd’s apartment, New York

One thing I loved about Donald Judd’s work is his sense of light, texture, scale and proportion. There is a sense of warmth, history and ruggedness. I loved the open-plan wooden floors, bare plaster walls and daylight flooding in through the huge windows on both outside walls, similar to the space that I chose for my client. At first Judd used the ground floor as his studio, but soon moved it to the second floor because of being pestered by passers-by who spotted him working. Learning from this, I chose a studio space on the second floor. Overall, Judd’s studio made me look at my own space with a fresher perspective.

Case study 2- Chubby seats by Holloway Li, London

Holloway Li released a chubby furniture collection inspired from 1990s retro design. The chubby seats are a combination of contemporary colours and the seat’s retro form results in a “retro-futuristic” design that invokes nostalgia. It is comforatble at the same time fun which makes it a statement piece in any studio.

Case study 3- Split timber lights by Sabu Studio, Australia

The Onu floor light and Onu pendant light, were handmade by Sabu Studio with the aim of combining traditional woodworking techniques with contemporary design. It was designed in response to “rapid urbanisation” and aims to reconnect urban interiors with the natural world.

The Matrimandir was designed by French architect Roger Anger. It took 37 years to build, from the laying of the foundation stone at sunrise on 21 February 1971, to its completion in May 2008. It is situated in the heart of a universal city – Auroville, about 12 kilometres from Pondicherry in India. 

The structure is in the form of a huge sphere surrounded by twelve petals. The Geodesic dome is covered by golden discs and reflects sunlight, which gives the structure its characteristic radiance. Inside the dome is a meditation hall known as the inner chamber that contains the largest optically-perfect glass globe in the world. Its walls are clad in white marble and the floor is covered with white carpet. A pair of spiral ramps provides access to the chamber.

The four main pillars that support the structure of Matrimandir have been set at the four main directions of the compass.

I took inspiration from this magnificent structure to design my architectural wearable. I created a face mask keeping in mind the the spherical structure of the dome. I added gold painted, cardboard pieces on it which resembles the Matrimandir’s golden discs. A face mask, being one of the most important accessory one can wear today, gave me the idea to connect it with this architectural design.