This piece is a re-enactment of a Tibetan myth that Buddha first drew the 'Wheel of Life' symbol using grains of rice on the ground as a way to describe to his disciples the continual rise and fall in the cycles of human progress.
This latest incarnation of 'Free Wheel' was presented as a live art installation at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham. I created a wheel symbol with rice grains on the floor of the Learning Space during the launch event of the NAE Open. Audiences were invited to contemplate the quotes - taken from artists, philosophers, writers and ecological and social activists.and pick up a handful of the lentils and place them inside the completed rice wheel adding their own expressions to the wheel.
I use the raw material of grains as food is a basic human need which drives the core of why we have to perform 'work', from obtaining food directly by growing and harvesting, or foraging, through to performing tasks to allow us to buy food to eat. Yet we perform work for many more reasons, and it's function goes beyond just this basic need. The increasingly automated manufacturing industries and growing use of artificial intelligence leads to our questioning the meaning and purpose of work in our contemporary world. The current resurgence of the hand-crafted and interest in going 'back to the land' challenges the progress we have made through automated systems of mass-production and prompts us to re-value human labour.
A closing performance 'Combine Wheel' was held where the installation was dismantled, the grains will be later used during an artist residency at NAE in the summer of 2022.
This latest incarnation of 'Free Wheel' was presented as a live art installation at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham. I created a wheel symbol with rice grains on the floor of the Learning Space during the launch event of the NAE Open. Audiences were invited to contemplate the quotes - taken from artists, philosophers, writers and ecological and social activists.and pick up a handful of the lentils and place them inside the completed rice wheel adding their own expressions to the wheel.
I use the raw material of grains as food is a basic human need which drives the core of why we have to perform 'work', from obtaining food directly by growing and harvesting, or foraging, through to performing tasks to allow us to buy food to eat. Yet we perform work for many more reasons, and it's function goes beyond just this basic need. The increasingly automated manufacturing industries and growing use of artificial intelligence leads to our questioning the meaning and purpose of work in our contemporary world. The current resurgence of the hand-crafted and interest in going 'back to the land' challenges the progress we have made through automated systems of mass-production and prompts us to re-value human labour.
A closing performance 'Combine Wheel' was held where the installation was dismantled, the grains will be later used during an artist residency at NAE in the summer of 2022.