Jenny Kerr

Oct 17

My exploration with clay is a process of inquiry, a creative social practice, a way of thinking, a way of caring, a way of knowing. I think through clay as material matrix in an endeavour to connect with place, memory and other beings.

My Masters research project, Does this place matter?, is an investigation into materiality as a way to understand place. The objective is to generate location-specific responses or context-responsive projects that are infused with the psychological, ecological, social and political significance of a place.

My practice centres around the action of ‘digging’ and its ideas evolve from and around ‘new materialism’. I dig about unearthing matter, written, imagined, seen, heard, smelled and felt matter. It is an experiential, diffractive, engaged, creative and rhizomic practice.

To enable the research, I decide to be present in a location, as an artist-in-residence. It allows me to locate, explore, be with and work alongside matter. I investigate and test ideas at six diverse locations. The diversity compels me to dig into, or at the very least scratch, the surface of the social and political tensions that shape public and private space. It raises questions of access, equity and who or what is the public.

My research catalogue details the responses and findings at three locations; Site # 4 Sunday’s Avatar, Site #10 Water Table to Table Top and Site #1175 Being at Home is Different to Staying at Home.