Ash Hempsall Artworks
And Then is a novel and, once read, an installation. Briefly, it is the fictional memoir of a man who loses one sense each day – first smell, then hearing etc. – while otherwise remaining perfectly healthy. His ultimate incarceration within himself forces him to create a mental environment in which to inhabit. Without some sense of place (albeit imaginary), he fears he does not exist. Yet the environment he conjures for himself becomes increasingly dilapidated, foul and ridden with falsity. And then…
body block I- X is a series of figurative sculpture laser-cut from wood. The figures have all been partially displaced by or absorbed into the space they should occupy. That’s how you see other people in the large cities; rarely in their entirety, mostly obscured and curtailed by intervening objects or consumed by a background.
mind block I- XX is a series of computer-generated ink works. They were made swiftly – like sketch drawings but using scanned blocks of tone and elements of dead languages excavated on-line. After each work is printed once, the image file is erased.
language block I utilizes abandoned materials scavenged from Shanghai’s plentiful demolition sites – bolts, nails, washers, springs, brackets etc.; the details of construction and dust of destruction. These artifacts are organized on the surface of a door found opening onto the ground at one such site. This makes a language that means nothing but looks like it should.
Letter From Nowhere centres around a fire-blackened block of wood, retrieved from a factory blaze in Lianhua. In front of this charcoaled stump lays a wad of photocopy paper. It’s a kind of basic machine* – the burned wood will gradually deposit charcoal dust on the paper. Its purpose is to send a message (over an unspecified period of time and possibly only to itself). Exactly what the letter will say, it’s too early to tell.
* self-powering and no carbon footprint.
Huang Xiao Kou’s video bird apartment block documents the progress of a public installation at a building newly renovated from State Grid office to styled rental space. We noticed a large area of prime space was not being developed – the air around the building. The installation aims to accommodate the needs of another Shanghai population – the ubiquitous Urban Sparrow – in an aerial apartment block.
Originally the plan was to hang it during the sparrow’s nesting season (which finishes in July). But the hanging has not been possible at this time. We hope soon.