Leo Duff

Beijing: The Shape of Things To Come

A residency in spring 2012 did not turn out as planned.

Arriving at the apartment allocated for the five week stay, the neatly stored, numerous and brightly coloured plastic items left by previous occupants took over from the ideas and theme which had been researched the previous autumn.The shapes and mystery of who had lived in the apartment and the ghostly presence of the previous owners appears throught these objects. In archaeology, knowing some history of the location of the excavation, the more you take away the more you see and find. Here was a set of objects creating the reversal of an archaeological process, all the ‘finds’ present, but with no story of their past evident.

Using drawing techniques developed on the Stonehenge residencies, this new collection of everyday artefacts took on their own mystery to be explored and developed into an original look at life in China.