We are the Watch, You are the Weather is a series of city-wide sculptures. The sculptures will be created through collaboration with different communities to explore and represent their values and perspectives. A series of workshops will unlock their individual and collective narratives. The central motif of the project is the figure. The figure as always been a carrier of certain values, codes, and as a symbols  of political, social, and psychological views. The figure has long been used to carry meaning and represent, identities, communities and nation states.

 

The sculptures are proposed to operate akin to the idea of the Scarecrow, a constructed figure who,  sometimes animated by the winds is in place of a person there to protect a crop by its presence. Taking this idea further,  the figures in this project are a kind of watchman referred to as The Keepers who represent and capture the outcome of these collaborations. The Keepers are embellished with signs symbols and words formed through fabric, sewing and embroidery distilling and representing the exchanges had during the workshops. 

 

Drawing on the conspicuous nature of “air dancers” designed to attract our attention, the Keepers in the project are sculpted by wind powered through their form made of thin material. Similar to flags, the Keepers flutter, fall and extend their form. This pairing enabling it’s intended failure, a deliberately eye catching falling and rising movement that is both absurd and haunting. This gesticulation reminiscent of the body language for despair, struggle, ecstasy or celebration.

 

The figures are placed in locations that can suggest contextual adjacencies. We are the Watch creates a trail that is a reading of the city and its history.  Through systems of exchange, the project invites us to consider thoughts on individualism, community, identity, representation, society, cultural legacy and sustainability. 

 

Together we are weathering the world.

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You are the Weather

“All weather is caused by the sun, we feel the weather through our senses…… Weather is the day to day experience of our environments, local but not parochial, weather knowledge is something that you carry with you….“The weather is part of us and we are part of it. We are both subject to it and complicit in altering the climate. By inhabiting weather moments, we can round out this sense of ecological grief that many of us feel, through the act of witnessing.” Jay Drinkall

 

You are the Weather, points to way the weather occupies our everyday, conversation and language.   We talk of being weathered or having weathered situations, to be weathered speaks of temporal and spatial distances. You are the Weather refers to us as the temporal environment, together we are weathering the world, reflecting on what do we hold dear and how do we contribute.

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Each Keeper will also have a digital presence on a project website where you can find more about the narrative’s captured from the community’s workshops.  This can be accessed via a QR code placed on the Keeper and the public can download the project App.  These digital emblems operate as a listening post where members of the public are invited to make contributions via comments and images.