Notes on Andrew Gannon‘s contribution to the WORKSITE blog.
- Andrew begins by defining “work” as “everything is work/nothing is work”, while defining “site” as “a specific place”. This all-or-nothing approach to work is interesting as it alludes to the difficulties that might be involved in separating “that which is work” from “that which is not work”. Andrew sums up the relationship between “work” and “site” as “they don’t necessarily relate to each other as one is general and the other specific”.
- Andrew writes that his work “could be anything, most of which doesn’t look like what is conventionally understood as work” and adds that “there is a lot of what might be considered doing nothing”. Andrew describes how he uses his limb difference and associated issues as “the grit in the oyster” that enables him to develop his work.
- Andrew describes how he makes work in response to the “perceived site” generated by societal expectations and assumptions about limb difference, and adds that “the work is helping me make sense of the site, as much as the site is necessary to make the work”. In this way Andrew might see his work as occupying a conceptual “site” as opposed to a physical one, and we could even argue that this work is made in a conceptual – rather than a physical – space.
- On the tools and resources that he requires in order to make his work, Andrew explains that “I would like to think I am resourceful enough to work with whatever is to hand” though adds that he is currently reliant on “[the] studio facilities at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and everything that provides”. Perhaps Andrew’s occupation of the “perceived site” generated by the outside perception of limb difference makes his work more conceptual in nature and thus more flexible in terms of his requirements? Does an interest in a conceptual “site” lend itself to a conceptual / immaterial way of working – or is it more helpful to “materialize” the immaterial (for example through the sculptural work that Andrew is engaged in)?
