Half-way



October 6, 2010

Before starting the residency I had a clear idea of what I wanted to research in the collection but no fixed vision of how the work I made would look.  What has emerged appears as though the landscapes from the museum objects I have been studying were swept under water where they became muddled and settled as sediments.  A dredged scene, like fragile crusts formed on things that once were.  Somewhere suggestive of the aftermath of a volcanic eruption or a desert. 

The vast emptiness of desert landscapes seem closer to something of the universe rather than the world, their shifting mass of singular matter fascinates me.  This same fascination is partly what drew me to spend time in Greenland.  I remember lying in the snow watching the sky pulse in luminescent green bands, further disoriented by the sound of wild dogs echoing between islands.  It felt as though reality had slipped into science-fiction.

Werner Herzog describes his film of the Sahara desert, Fata Morgana, as “a science-fiction elegy of demented colonialism.”  It makes me think about some fantasy scenes applied to British tableware, particularly following the copyright act of 1842.  Scenes where you might find palm trees growing amidst oriental mountains, classical Greek ruins and rococo scrolls that have morphed into enlarged forms of vaguely pre-historic vegetation.  Odd backdrops, where romances are enacted and men proudly kill bears.

About the author



October 6, 2010

Phoebe Cummings was the V&A's ceramics artist-in-residence from June-December 2010. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005 she has undertaken a number of residencies, projects and exhibitions...

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