losing laura jordan - my exhibition piece

Here are some images of the work I put in the show.
The brief was to produce a piece of work that described your journey to London - be it your bus ride into work, or your emotional/physical/metaphysical journey up to this point, where you find yourself in London. Mum - I'll send you the brief later because I know you'll want to read it! I set the brief for the agency without thinking about what I was going to cover first, and I had a thousand different ideas... but pretty soon formulated that:

1. I wanted to document the possessions of mine that had made it with me on my travels so far (esp. as I'm such a hoarder)
2. I wanted to do something using the book "Laura Jordan" that I've had in my possession for about the last 12 years - its a really bad 80's soft porn... so bad in fact that its been discontinued!

My initial idea was that I could create a new persona for myself by juxtaposing the objects (a lot of which are things like my vast collection of dog collars...) with pieces of text from the novel.

In fact, it ended up (as the title suggests) by being more of an ode to the things in my life that i've left behind, or have transmuted into something else (such as my maiden name) - and to essential parts of myself that I will always hold close to my heart though they don't remain part of my everyday existence anymore.

It actually became quite personal, and I was sad in a way to give a voice to the feeling of leaving my trail behind me, which was gradually becoming longer and quieter through time as I move ahead.

The texts that were highlighted on the wall behind were the most (BADLY WRITTEN!!!) pornographic bits I could find in the novel - a juxtaposition of the nostalgia, preciousness and personal sadness the objects bring... They sat on a background of nasty wallpaper - the kind you might find in a rented apartment - to bring everything back into the realm of the personal and historical again.

All in all, kinda successful I thought, for something that was put together through the pressure of work/morning sickness/baby thoughts and exhaustion!

Here is a picture of the installation itself:

Close-up of the objects (and Bish, one of the glue Producers):