“Roll Over, Play Dead”, Residency and Exhibition at LKV, Trondheim, Norway

Exhibition Statement
The work in this exhibition mainly looks at the concepts of simulation, illusion, deception and disguise. I am interested in simulated environments, for example children's playgrounds (which inspired one of the pieces in this exhibition). The theatre can also be seen as a simulated environment: it is a place where performance happens so deals with illusion, though actually perhaps we are always performing in real life. We pretend, we lie, we exaggerate, we wear masks.
I find puppets interesting for many reasons. Puppets can do anything- whatever we want them to! They are lawless beings, or outlaws, perhaps.
They are comic, but there is also something very tragic about them, because they can live only under our control. They simulate life, so we empathise with them, though the puppet has no life without us. We inflict life upon it: it lives because we want it to. It lives off our life (that is, the life of the puppeteer, and the audience who believes in it) kind of like a parasite, so perhaps it makes us think about and question what it is to be alive.
Puppets are objects, created by humans from materials to simulate a living "thing", often something in our own image. They are the bridge between us and the object world- the land of inanimate "things".
Finally, the work here also explores the idea of disillusionment. I think puppets can articulate this very well. The disillusionment that can be the result of becoming aware that something is an illusion, having to accept failure, starting again, and having to let something die.