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| Stella Tripp's artwork, waiting to be found |
There’s something about the idea of scattering little pieces of art in random locations that appeals to my inner child. I’ve always loved the idea of discovery – of venturing forth and finding new adventures. Perhaps that’s partly why I adore visiting charity shops. It’s that sense that you never quite know what you will find. Another person’s cast-off might yet turn out to be the beginnings of a new adventure. I shall never forget the excitement, for instance, of finding a hand-printed Victorian book of love poems, languishing in a pile of postcards at my local Oxfam shop. But it’s not just shop-bought treasures. All small things have the capacity to thrill me. I’m a nightmare to go on a walk with because I can never resist picking up a heart-shaped leaf or a beautifully polished pebble.
There’s something of this thrill of discovery in Alban Low and Dean Reddick’s creative exhibitions. I say ‘exhibition’ but, really, that word seems wholly inadequate. Imagine an exhibition with no walls, whose gallery is the wide-open spaces, and whose visitors are anyone who happens to walk past.
Each of the small artworks in ‘Collect Connect’ are placed in public spaces, where passers-by can connect and interact with them. There are no rules; no money changes hands. Only adventures to be shared and enjoyed.
In keeping with the month of Valentine’s Day, the theme of the latest exhibition is Love tokens and Bad Pennies. This is explained on the Collect Connect blog:
“Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turns up?
Both the Love Token and the Bad Penny are part of the currency of life, two sides of the same coin. These everyday objects are defaced or distinguished to help us remember those who we hold dear and those who we would rather forget.”
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| Artwork by Alban Low at #unsettledgallery No.10 |
Artworks from 17 artists will appear placed in or beside fountains and sacred waterways in London during each day of February. Accompanying the artworks are new written works by a poets or authors, which appear on the CollectConnect blog.
https://collectconnect.blogspot.com/
https://collectconnect.blogspot.com/
This is where I come in. I volunteered to write responses to three of the artworks because it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. I love the idea of ‘found’ art. I also relish the creative challenge of responding to somebody else’s art and, in doing so, finding new creative forms of expression. My selection was based purely on emotional response. Those artworks that seemed to stimulate words or ideas were the ones I chose to write about. In fact, the poems (and one short prose piece) wrote themselves. I’d come up with a vague idea and often find that, once I started writing, the words ran away from me and took on ideas of their own. So a story that was meant to be about first love quickly became a study in dangerous obsession. And a poem about the interconnectedness of things turned into a sort of folk riddle. I like the fact that the three pieces I wrote are each completely different in character, each identifying a different form of love. That wasn’t intentional; it just happened, as these things so often do.
Anyway, I hope you’ll take a look at the blog https://collectconnect.blogspot.com/ and if you happen to be anywhere near London, specially around Walthamstow/ Twickenham area, see if you can spot one of the artworks. Who knows, it may take you on creative adventures of your own…
