Hope Land - A Landscape
Welcome to Hope Land
A Residency @ R-Space, Lisburn
November 2013
A l a n d s c a p e.
Michael Mayhew
I was asked to write some words.
Should I say everything or simply stick with the advise of saying ‘nothing’.
By uttering this ‘nothing’ are we metaphorically attempting to say everything, through the subtlety of gesture and possibly a smugness of false wit, a misguided intelligence, leading to ignorance, meanness, spite and cruelty?
Is this ‘nothing’ simply a veiled transparent wall that divides, splits and rules a promotion of fear?
Should I say nothing and build my own wall of transparent bricks, live in my own secluded bubble?
I was invited to Lisburn to respond, reflect, enquire, question, live, engage, witness, listen, see, play and make ‘art’.
I wanted to explore an experience we identify as ‘hope’.
Hope was the only thing remaining in Pandora’s box once it had been opened.
Hope "...comes into play when our circumstances are dire", when "things are not going well or at least
there’s considerable uncertainty about how things will turn out".
Hope Land is not about Lisburn, it is not a view ‘on the Irish thing’. This is already an over crowded arena,
a money laundering machine of bought & sold ‘hope’.
Hope Land specifically focuses on the human condition, Hope Land has it’s own sense of place and so purpose.
Hope Land does respond and draw upon the found and heard of my time here, but hope as a source for work has far more universal resonances, beyond the borders of building, city, county, country, political and religious doctrines.
"Hope literally opens us up ... removes the blinders of fear and despair and allows us to see the big picture, thus allowing us to become creative" and have "belief in a better future".
As an artist I find ‘Hope’ in the creative act, in the transformation of place, in the making of landscape, worlds, locations.
Art for me is life.
It offers perpetual future. It requests for participation, engagement, negotiation, and a commitment to conversation.
This is Hope Land in its pure essence.
List of Works
A Residency @ R-Space, Lisburn
November 2013
A l a n d s c a p e.
Michael Mayhew
I was asked to write some words.
Should I say everything or simply stick with the advise of saying ‘nothing’.
By uttering this ‘nothing’ are we metaphorically attempting to say everything, through the subtlety of gesture and possibly a smugness of false wit, a misguided intelligence, leading to ignorance, meanness, spite and cruelty?
Is this ‘nothing’ simply a veiled transparent wall that divides, splits and rules a promotion of fear?
Should I say nothing and build my own wall of transparent bricks, live in my own secluded bubble?
I was invited to Lisburn to respond, reflect, enquire, question, live, engage, witness, listen, see, play and make ‘art’.
I wanted to explore an experience we identify as ‘hope’.
Hope was the only thing remaining in Pandora’s box once it had been opened.
Hope "...comes into play when our circumstances are dire", when "things are not going well or at least
there’s considerable uncertainty about how things will turn out".
Hope Land is not about Lisburn, it is not a view ‘on the Irish thing’. This is already an over crowded arena,
a money laundering machine of bought & sold ‘hope’.
Hope Land specifically focuses on the human condition, Hope Land has it’s own sense of place and so purpose.
Hope Land does respond and draw upon the found and heard of my time here, but hope as a source for work has far more universal resonances, beyond the borders of building, city, county, country, political and religious doctrines.
"Hope literally opens us up ... removes the blinders of fear and despair and allows us to see the big picture, thus allowing us to become creative" and have "belief in a better future".
As an artist I find ‘Hope’ in the creative act, in the transformation of place, in the making of landscape, worlds, locations.
Art for me is life.
It offers perpetual future. It requests for participation, engagement, negotiation, and a commitment to conversation.
This is Hope Land in its pure essence.
List of Works