Artist Jeanie Finlay explains to Hannah Collier why a house clearance company helped take down her latest exhibition.
Second hand shops are filled with once-loved objects, detached from their owners and their history and transformed into bric-a-brac.
It was this process that artist Jeanie Finlay wanted to capture as she dismantled her Home-Maker exhibition at Newcastle’s Hatton Gallery.
Finlay’s series of panoramic films, showcased in an installation, explored the private lives of seven elderly house-bound people in Derbyshire and Tokyo who talked about their lives and treasured possessions.
The two room installation, with an English and Japanese side, contained cherished items from each of the seven.
Since the project started, four of the seven people have died. Jeanie wanted to do something more for them than just pack their things away.
She hoped her way of closing the show reflected what would really happen and would enable the posessions to go to new and loving homes. She engaged a team from Heaton Used Furniture to strip the rooms in the gallery and sell the items, as might have happened in other people’s homes. This was Jeanie’s way of laying the piece to rest.
“Instead of selling or throwing the items away. I wanted to make a proper end to it all. What happens hen you die is that your things become clutter, just something to gt rid of. Some items will be sold in the shop, some will inevitably be thrown away and the walls will be used with a roof as an allotment shed.
“This is what will happen to all of us. We will die and our things will be broken up and many will lose the symbolism they held.”
Jeanie embarked on the home-maker project three years ago and since then it has taken over her life. It has become her favourite piece of work since she began as an artist in 1996.
“The inspiration for this project was my interest in portraiture and the panoramic view. I got onto thinking how people who are housebound live evry day with this 360 degree view. The narrative suggested the technology I used. Every item has a history and it was the first time I had done anything in video so it was very exciting.”
“The show won an award in Japan and that was how Home-Maker Tokyo was born. It is very personal to me, with all the items in the rooms, but it would be a very big thing to keep. I tried to collect items that were symbolic and reflected the interests of their owners.
“The subject matter should always suggest the best way to make the work and in this case it really did. The medium I use depends on the piece of work I am doing”
This Home-Maker extension can be seen on Jeanie’s website. www.home-maker.org.uk