In this interview, we speak to Marianna Petrides and Raphael Delbono that create work within the 4D department of Fine Art.
What is the title of your work?
“The gardenless”.
Summarise your work in 5 words
Confinement,liberation and the mind.
Talk us through the process of creating your work
The person that you see in this video is nobody…in the sense that they do not portray one singular living being, this person is a vessel that carries a message about us, the gardenless.
The fact that Sydney Waterlow gave the park to the public as “a garden for the gardenless” can be thought to be a little unsettling. A garden can evoke the feelings of freedom, fresh air, liberation - in contrast we “the gardenless” have been contained, indoctrinated and have subconsciously become slaves to the concrete jungle that we call home.
The process of creating the work begun as soon as we heard the words “garden for the gardenless” used in our initial contextual lecture about the project.
Before filming anything ,by chance we came across “Voices of light”, a 1994 musical composition by Richard Einhorn (which we have since discovered was inspired by the silent film, “The passion of Joan of Arc). “Voices of light” instantly jumped out to us both as it steadily and slowly builds a tension which releases in one swift, intense burst of this incredibly beautiful melody, then it returns to the same slower tension.
Einhorn’s music has a burst of spontaneity but swiftly reverts to something slightly more routine, this fits into the cycle of the experience of the park. The park visitor is able to briefly escape the grey city that surrounds for a duration of time (the park opening hours) in which time they can experience an exciting escapism which will result in their exit into the real world and routine. In short, we felt the art and music alike imitate life.
After the selection of music, we drew up a story-board and took to Waterlow park to film using both DSLR and drone. The drone was able to shoot from higher angles than we anticipated, the further the drone flew from the subject, the more the feeling of containment and control was created. We edited the footage using Premier pro.
How is the work "site-specific"?
The work is site-specific as the filming took place in the park itself. One of the more intriguing ways that made Waterlow Park the best choice for filming in is the view of the city beyond the greenery that we captured when shooting on drone, it almost creates a visible barrier between the world that we live in on a day-to-day basis and the green haven that is the park. We also thought about the way in which the work is time-specific, the park opens and closes at specific times, at other times it is inaccessible - which inevitably means that the visitors will have to leave the park and return to the concrete city. The cycle of confinement and liberation is constant…ultimately it is infinite.
You can follow Marianna Petrides and Raphael Delbono on instagram @mariannapetrides and @raphaeldelbono