Jane Rendell » Works

What is the colour of memory?

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When Jules Wright from the Wapping Project asked me to write about the work of artist Elina Brotherus, I found myself turning to three short texts I had written concerning architecture, memory and colour. Brotherus’ photographic images spoke to me of nostalgia and anticipation and these pieces provided emotional positions from which to consider her work. I wove an account drawn from the ‘The Welsh Dresser’, along with two other personal reflections, into a critical essay on Brotherus’ autobiographic and landscape photography, called ‘Longing for the Lightness of Spring’. ‘Moss Green’ describes the derelict house of an architect, in which, on a Sunday in March, I found photographs of a brave new world of high rise housing blocks. ‘Bittersweet’ is the account of a visit made to a disused cork factory in Palafrugell in Catalunya in April, where the floor was scattered with the names of colours. Later that year, in November, I dreamt about a childhood home that had just been sold. ‘White Linen’ remembers this dream.

For an expedition to Seoul, as ‘what is the colour of memory?’ for Intersections between Art and Architecture, in 2002, a Korean vocal translation was added to each text as well as an image and an object drawn from each place.

For associated publications see Jane Rendell, ‘Writing in place of speaking’, Sharon Kivland and Lesley Sanderson (eds.), Transmission: Speaking and Listening, (Sheffield Hallam University and the Site Gallery, 2003) and Jane Rendell, ‘Site-Writing’, Sharon Kivland, Jaspar Joseph-Lester and Emma Cocker, (eds.), Inscription, (Sheffield Hallam University and the Site Gallery, 2005).

The voice one cannot control

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:50:01 +0000

‘The Voice One Cannot Control’ was a text/audio installation, originally commissioned for Concrete Feedback, curated by Brandon La Belle, Southern Californian Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, Nov 2002.

‘The Voice One Cannot Control’ is a triptyph. Three stories about three places. Three stories written in London travel to Seoul and then to Los Angeles. At the same time they are translated from English to Korean and back again, from writing to speaking and back again. To travel to Los Angeles, the Korean audio tapes were translated back into their mother tongue, but into written rather than verbal English.

The installation consists of three pairs of texts in English (size determined by site) and three audio recordings (approximately 2 minutes each in length) in Korean. Each story exists as a pair of texts, set either side of a pillar at eye level, far apart to make simultaneous reading difficult but possible. Both texts are in English, one is the original, the other a written translation once removed through a Korean voice. The Korean audio recordings are placed between the texts, audible just at the point where the reader can no longer read both texts simultaneously.

See Jane Rendell, ‘Writing in place of speaking’, Sharon Kivland and Lesley Sanderson (eds.), Transmission: Speaking and Listening, (Sheffield Hallam University and the Site Gallery, 2003).

Les mots et les choses

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Translated into English as The Order of Things Michel Foucault’s exploration of the ordering of representational systems was taken as a theoretical starting point for ‘les mots and les choses’ shown at Entwistle Gallery, London in 2003. Here three objects collected from these sites of memory were positioned in the slippage in language that occurs through translation and displacement. In moving, the words were translated from English to Korean and back again, from writing to speaking and back again, yet the objects appeared unchanged.

The work was exhibited at ’Les mots at les choses’, (text/object installation), for Material Intelligence, Entwistle Gallery, London, (March 2003), and published as ‘Les Mots et les Choses’, Laura Allen, Iain Borden, Peter Cook and Rachel Stevenson, (eds), Bartlett Works: Architecture, Buildings, Projects, (London: August Projects Ltd., 2004) and in ‘Site-Writing’, Sharon Kivland, Jaspar Joseph-Lester and Emma Cocker, (eds.), Inscription, (Sheffield Hallam University and the Site Gallery, 2005). The work draws on an earlier essay ‘Longing for the Lightness of Spring’ in Elina Brotherus: The Wapping Project, (London, 2001).

Confessional Constructions

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:47:38 +0000

‘Confessional Construction’ consists of photographic and written documentation of a text installation for LLAW curated by Brigid McLeer, ‘BookArtBookShop’, London, 2002. This work explores the relationship between a number of forms of writing, including architectural specifications and autobiographical accounts, as they move from the private mode of the confessional to become a page that addresses the public space of a street corner. The ‘Confessional Construction’ was performed at ‘taking place’, University of North London, 22/24 November 2001 and in reading aloud, reconfigured, creating a new piece of writing.

For associated publications: see Jane Rendell, ”Between Two: Theory and Practice’, Journal of Architecture (Summer 2003), v. 8; Jane Rendell, ‘From Architectural History to Spatial Writing’, in Elvan Altan Ergut, Dana Arnold, Belgin Turan Ozkaya, (eds.), Rethinking Architectural Historiography, (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2006); Jane Rendell, ’Architectural History as Critical Practice’, in Hilde Heynen and Jean-Louis Genard (eds.), Critical Tools: International Coloquium on Architecture and Cities, no. 3, (Bruxelles, La Lettre Volée, forthcoming 2006); Jane Rendell, ‘Taking Place, but only for so long’, Doina Petrescu (ed.) Altering Practices, (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2006).

Balancing the Accounts

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‘Balancing the Accounts’, is a text work on giving and taking published in Morris (ed), Bibliomania, (2001).

An Embellishment: Purdah

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:47:06 +0000

There is a kind of rug called an engsi, whose role in Herat is to serve as a doorway: to separate inside and outside. In Afghanistan the engsi is called a purdah. Purdah is also the term used to describe the cultural practice of separating and hiding women, through clothing and architecture – veils, screens and walls – from the public gaze. In purdah, women wear chadors or veils to cover their bodies from head to foot. The traditional Afghan version is called a burqa. Under the Taliban women had to stay inside and when in public wear full burqa. Only their eyes could be seen, the rims sometimes coloured with black kohl, looking out through the window of an embroidered screen.

‘An Embellishment: Purdah’ was written in black kohl on the twelve panes of glass of a window on a landing facing to the west. Depending on where (and when) you are, in the gallery or in the street, the work can be read like a script and seen like an image. Transparent yet opaque, concealing yet revealing, this embellishment, as a form of decorative covering, invites you to imagine beyond the places you can see.

‘An Embellishment: Purdah’ was exhibited for ‘Spatial Imagination’, (The Domo Baal Gallery, London, January 2006) with an associated catalogue essay in Peg Rawes and Jane Rendell (eds), Spatial Imagination, (London, 2005).

See www.spatialimagination.org/