A new project - trying to make visual representations of Jersey in jam jars...

Well I've been really busy recently; drawing near to the first term of my last year at uni is a scary thought! This week I had my interim presentation, where I had to show some new work and give a presentation about how my studio practice relates to my dissertation (the rest of the text is taken from the script from the presentation). This year I have decided to turn my research into visual artifacts.  I am making little jars (like the ones in my gallery) with small models in side and possibly some etchings around the edges and some found objects. I hope that they will be intricate enough to be quite captivating. The family of jars is going to steadily grow and they may land up with a network of connections running between them. I don’t want to use these cheap Dolmio jars - but they are just maquettes to get me going. 

As there is so much research material to work with, it’s been quite difficult coming up with single designs - especially as some events are so connected.  So I am starting with the easier things - like landmarks. The island is visually quite a remarkable place, with some prominent aspects like the German fortifications and defenses built during the Nazi Occupation between 1940 and 1945, it has some stunning beaches and some interesting architecture - we have one of the top three of the ugliest hotels in the world.  There are also some interesting traditions, like the traditional dresses and hats that were worn by women whilst working in the fields of giant cabbages...yes giant cabbages, which are basically cabbages growing on top of a 6 foot high stem.  The stem used to be dried and turned into walking sticks, and the cabbage leaves were wrapped around bread dough to protect it from burning in the embers of the fire - unfortunately, there are no longer fields of giant cabbages.  The island itself is in the stages of dramatic changes at the moment, more land is being reclaimed from the sea, more houses are being built and historic traditions and sites are slowly being lost, and I want to preserve them as best as I can, but also tell people these stories. 

I think there is a strong sense of narrative in my work, and to a local person looking at them, they will instantly recognise some of these places for what they are.  But for an audience outside of the island, it will possibly difficult to understand and relate to the images.  So I am aware that there is certain information that needs to be provided and I am playing with the labels at relaying this information, but I think it’s a little clumsy and there is probably a better way of doing it - like a little leaflet.  But it depends on how many jars I make and how they get displayed - if leaflets are the way to go, then some coding system will have to be put in place.  I have thought of an audio accompaniment, like what they sometimes have at the Tate, but that dictates the pace of the viewer and I want them to be at liberty to spend time with the piece without being told what to look at. 

For me, my work sits in a strange place... I am a born and bred islander and  I am proud of my heritage, but  I am not happy with the island’s current state.  I want to create a visual representation of my relationship with the island, showing the good qualities, but also revealing its darker side.

I have picked things that are beautiful and unique to the island, which I want to preserve in the jars. However, the placement of them in the jars highlights the insular nature of Jersey and its separation from the world.  The ideas are trapped but at the same time protected from the external world, but also from other aspects in the internal world.  Jersey has a self-destructive nature, from the literal elements like the sea and the wind to its politics. And by deconstructing the island and dividing it into little individual worlds, it helps me to understand more about how the island is connected and where its faults lie.

Although I am part of this insular world,  I have managed to view it from the outsider’s perspective by leaving it. I can place myself both inside and outside of the jars, as a figurine trapped and as a viewer peering in and casting a critical eye over the contents.  And getting to know these two positions has given me a chance to explore the dynamics between the insider and the outsider.  Am I an insider wanting to educate the outsider, or am I an outsider wanting to educate the insider or am I an insider educating insiders or an outsider educating other outsiders?

The question of where I situate myself, as an insider or as an outsider is a difficult one for me to answer.  I am obviously Jersey born and bred - aside from my Dutch surname and my English father, I have a strong family tree in the island that goes back into some of the older traditional family names. I have my residential quali’s to live and buy a house in the island without having to rent for 12 years - as those who are not born on the island have to do.  I have a family home that I will ultimately inherit and I am an active member of the community - I work in a cafe at the end of a small pier serving local fishermen and residents and so it is my business to know the locals and keep up with gossip. 

Having the freedom of the UK really highlights the problems with the island, of course the UK has its own issues, but there is much more a sense of democracy here.  Jersey is always floating in a state of limbo...we don’t belong to the EU, but we follow EU regulations. We are not part of the UK, but we follow UK law and have sterling as our currency and follow Greenwich Mean Time.  We are a Crown Dependency, so our head judge, called the Bailiff, and the Lieutenant Governor are both appointed by the Queen and report back to her, yet I am still classed as an foreign student even though I have a British passport.  We follow everybody else’s rules, yet we still insist we are a free state.  There is so much controversy and chaos within the island that it is very hard to describe what we are.  There are talks to make Jersey a completely independent country, or to join the EU and even to switch to French time.  It is as though no body can decide what we are for definite - and although I am proud to call myself a Jersey Bean, I am still not sure what that means.  So I am simultaneously an insider and an outsider.

Well that was part of my presentation - of course, the audience being all here in the UK, it is based towards them, and there was a lot more to it, but I have cut it down here.  Be interesting to see how anyone else feels about making work in Jersey (and about Jersey?)

Thanks

Bry