emma johnson

STACK (Hypertension)

‘STACK (Hypertension)’ is the first in a series of towers / heaps of paper: observing the ways people close to me collect & hoard objects. On a personal level, it is within my nature (a) to hoard / archive objects, and (b) deconstruct / destroy them. As an inherited trait, this interests me a great deal: not only do the objects themselves contain a history, but so does the obsessive way in which they are treated.

FLIP (release)

My Mother-in-Law hoarded newspapers and magazines, and kept them piled up in a gigantic stack on a footstool infront of the television – usually it obscured the view. She refused to throw any of them away as they might have a useful article or interesting recipe inside.

One boring Sunday, this inspired me to make an even bigger pile of newspapers, so high that they would reach the ceiling – it was so precarious it had to be supported by steel wires in my studio (this was “Hypertension” – the first in the series). Eventually I was forced to dismantle it, as it was in danger of bringing the ceiling down – and quite as an afterthought, stacked the papers in the corner and threw the footstool upside down ontop of the pile – hey presto “FLIP(release)” (Part 2). This is the one I recreated in the Fort.

I always intended to take the papers to the dump for recycling after the show as there is no space for me to keep them, and even I think that would be silly…
On the final day of the exhibition, I went to do one of my usual checks on the exhibition rooms – and found to my surprise that for the first time in over a month of not moving, the pile had buckled in the middle, and looked in severe danger of collapse – but I managed to shore it up sufficiently to last until the end of the exhibition.

This was the day she died.

SPIRIT

290644 – 040509

This is what remains, and it is the last in the series, “Hypertensinon”, “FLIP (release)” and “Spirit”