Current Projects - Maxine Bristow

The research ideas that are currently preoccupying me are a development of previous work which explores our bodily engagement with space, and in particular aspects of the built environment with which we have an actual physical, though often unconscious, bodily relationship. I am particularly interested in the ubiquity of textiles and the notion of the textile object as ‘silent witness’ to the repetitive routines and dramas of our daily lives. Also, in the way that textile as skin or membrane provides on the one hand a very real tangible point of contact and material boundary and on the other hand a more ambiguous metaphorical boundary between self and ‘not self’; and of course, what is crucial to this relationship - the importance of tactility and continuity of touch. Whereas previous work has been largely concerned with gestures of the hand and localised touch, what I am currently thinking about is less focused touch, touch that is not limited to static contact between fingertips and surface but like its corresponding organ of skin, dispersed throughout the body. What is informing these ideas are the simple, anonymous, non-descript mass produced upholstered pads and panels that constitute the non-spaces of our built environment - the upholstered panels that you find on the bus, tube and train or the upholstered panels of corporate furniture with which we have daily physical contact and which as a neutral stage set for the repetitive routines of our busy lives, silently soak up the clamour of activity in their dense absorbent surfaces.

What I am interested in exploring, are ways of revealing the physical and material traces of this activity and the real or imaginary narratives to which the textile object silently bears witness. Possible areas of investigation could include physical and scientific means of exposing the relationship between object and subject and the wear and tear of routine activity such as methodologies associated with forensic examination, archaeology, textile conservation and analysis. I am also interested in exploring the relationship between sculpture and furniture and the implied presence of the body through ergonomic design.