MIDDEN

In collboration with:
Sarah Fraser

Dimensions:
variable

Year:
2024

Location:
Galleri Taxi, Bergen

Materials: 
Bone china (bone ash, cornish stone, flint), cotton twine, video (17:48, looped), video (12:03, looped) field recordings (12:01, looped)

/ˈmɪd(ə)n/

1. A dungheap.
2. A refuse heap, usually near a dwelling.

(archaeology) An accumulation, deposit, or soil derived from occupation debris, rubbish, or other by-products of human activity, such as bone, shell, ash, or decayed organic materials; or a pile or mound of such materials, often prehistoric.

How can we define a site and its parameters? Does a site have agency? Could it be considered a creator, a maker continuously working to transform its material constituents? These are some of the questions within Midden, a project which brings together two artists' responses to a site of a former industrial pottery, composed of waste from over two centuries of bone china production.

Midden had its first iteration at Galleri Taxi in Bergen, in November 2024. It consisted of two site-specific video installations, projected onto multiple bone china segments, forming a fragmented screen. The projections were accompanied by the sound of field recordings, and the clinking sound of the screens themselves, brushing against each other as visitors walked around them. The work utilises the translucency of bone china, a quality which made the material so desirable, to create a projection which can be experienced from both sides of the screen. In this way, we are using the material as a lens through which we can observe the site created in its name.