This Thing About Making

This output is my contribution to a publication resulting from a collaboration which set out to investigate the practice of making art as research in its own right. Our collaborative intention was to introduce an alternative to the conventional approach to research in fine art, which is to employ critical analysis in order to place and fix the work of art.

This ambition was effected by a series of conversations exploring the 'process' of making an artwork, and bringing it to fruition. In this way the fluid and open conversations act upon the artwork in ways that are similar to the processes of actually making art. The aim was to mobilise present understanding of the processes of art practice. Conversations are printed and run through the book alongside individual texts from myself and the other three artists.

My text is titled ‘This Thing About Making’ and consists of a transcribed text taken from a recorded dialogue between myself and a specific work while actually in the process of making it. The text reflects the influences, thoughts, and references that come up in the processes of making. It also refers to current dilemmas in the practice of sculpture, which have a direct effect on my sculpture practice, referring specifically to Gabriel Orozco’s 'Yielding Stone' as a source of inspiration. It reads as a narrative but is a dialogic text exploring issues in sculpture today. At the end of the text a piece of work is completed.

In this way the relationship between thoughts, spoken words and sculpture process are totally connected. The text contains photographs from the video 'Something About Making' as well as an image of the completed work.

Joanna Greenhill

Research Interests

Sculpture
Dematerialisation
Transience
Repetition
Installation
Drawing

Current Research

My research practice is an investigation of the act of repetition. This is researched through mainly objects and drawings and more recently video and photographic works. My background is in sculpture and the use of objects and materials remains a fundamental influence in my work. The repetitive act is used as a means of revealing and connecting conscious and unconscious thoughts. These thoughts become evident as sound and text works which can co-exist with objects also made through repetitive processes. A current interest is investigating ways of materializing/de-materializing presence and the place of memory in the work of art. These interests have re-introduced an interest from my research degree work in impermanent materials and the role of transience in art. I am currently exploring the implications of transient work and how artists engage with process in the ongoing project Fugitive Materials which was launched at Tate Modern in 2005.

As well as exhibiting individually, I collaborated with other practitioners/writers to make the book Speaking and Making which looks at foregrounding the making of art as research in its own right - the practice of art as a mode of analysis. This approach is particularly suitable for the processes of making that I use.