On absence

Created as part of a residency at Soho Revue Gallery’s Studios in London.

This body of work explores absence as an embodied and emotional state, and considers how something that is in its essence not-there can be given physical form. The catalyst for the work was Clare Proctor’s poem titled' ‘On Absence’ (see below), I worked with the imagery of the poem and expanded outwards to consider the questions it poses.

On Absence by Clare Proctor

In the classroom, each child confirms their presence with a yes miss.

Absence is announced by a conspicuous silence, a silence that speaks.

/ Absence signifies that something is missing, meaning it is not where

it is supposed to be, which is slightly different to something not being

where it is expected to be. / Do you have children, miss? Why not? The

child's absence of experience speaks. / I think of absence, of how it

hides inside. / Now you think of absence. Is it abstract or concrete?

If it's concrete you can touch it, but can you feel what's not there?

/ You can feel absence. I can feel absence. / Absence has things in

common with, in no particular order: God, air, caves, death, presence,

infertility, nausea. / The distance between one absence and another

can't be measured. It could be the distance between two words on a

page, or the space between two bodies. It could be the length of one l

unar cycle. It could be years. / Air is not the same as absence. Empty

air is not the same as absence. / I become absent minded: forget to be

somewhere forget to tell you something forget myself / The absence of

a name. The fruitless reaching after it. The stretching to make room for

the nothing that comes. / In the absence of its own kind, the Australian

honeyeater is forgetting its own song, poorly mimicking the words

of other birds. / void space emptiness nonattendance nonappearance

absenteeism truancy leave vacation sabbatical skiving bunking off

notwithstanding failing lacking wanting / A glove without a hand on a

fence post. A shoe without a foot next to the motorway. A travel cot in

a box in a wardrobe. / Absence could be peace, if everyone, everything,

absented themselves - no people no animals no gloves no shoes no

motorways no questions no list of nothings no list of nos