Desk Story
If an explorer came to Glasgow and tried to decipher what they found here without context what would they make of this city?
It's a place of great contrasts. The city tries to present itself as a pinnacle of creativity and design, but it's built on foundations of steel, ships, grit and determination that flowed down a tidal river.Many of the areas that teemed with activity 100 years ago are now left to disrepair and ruin. The city that boasts the greatest greenspace to person ratio in Europe other than London also has one of the largest housing developments in the continent as well. How does a person make sense of a city with such schisms?
I moved here almost two years ago, only knowing what I had read in guide books and a four day visit 6 years prior. This desk represents my understanding of the city I now call home.
Taking inspiration from writers like Perec and Calvino, this desk attempts to tell the story of the city as I know it. Individual objects tell their own stories, but the greater narrative is in the relationships between them. Each person will draw different conclusions as to what these relationships mean and what the story is trying to say, just as each person has a different understanding of the city they inhabit.
It's a place of great contrasts. The city tries to present itself as a pinnacle of creativity and design, but it's built on foundations of steel, ships, grit and determination that flowed down a tidal river.Many of the areas that teemed with activity 100 years ago are now left to disrepair and ruin. The city that boasts the greatest greenspace to person ratio in Europe other than London also has one of the largest housing developments in the continent as well. How does a person make sense of a city with such schisms?
I moved here almost two years ago, only knowing what I had read in guide books and a four day visit 6 years prior. This desk represents my understanding of the city I now call home.
Taking inspiration from writers like Perec and Calvino, this desk attempts to tell the story of the city as I know it. Individual objects tell their own stories, but the greater narrative is in the relationships between them. Each person will draw different conclusions as to what these relationships mean and what the story is trying to say, just as each person has a different understanding of the city they inhabit.
In the drawers of the desk, I wanted to highlight the ephemera that make up the day to day existence of a city. One is papered with tickets I have accumulated during my two years, and edged by the guide books that made up my prior knowledge of the city. . A specimen drawer has Buckfast labeled Holy Water resting on subway tickets that have been chromed. Another is filled with boxes containing collections of items, such as vials filled with Irn Bru glued over a map of the Clyde. The viewer has to decide what these objects mean and how they relate to each other Maps which could never exist, but look plausible enough, live in the top of the desk.
Process—Exterior
After reading work by Calvino and Perrec, I was interested in extending the concept of self-contained vignettes forming a narrative whole to a more physical form of story-telling. This desk is the story of my Glasgow. Wood shows through the paint, revealing all of the city’s green-space. Highlighting my personal explorations, a varnish was applied to the negative spaces around the streets I have visited during my time here.
Process—Interior
