sporadic assemblage - steph shipley | monica perez-vega
Sporadic Assemblage has been an ongoing collaboration between Monica Perez-Vega and Steph Shipley during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 - initiated respectively by CG Associates Digital Penfriend scheme in Manchester and Eastside Projects in Birmingham. We were proposed as an ‘imperfect pairing of artists’ but one that held potential during the pandemic lockdown. Our early correspondence led to the significance of plants as a model to encourage the sharing of resources and building of ‘sporadic, collaborative communities’ as a means of survival.
Through the physical exchange of abject remnants of nature collected from our daily walks and cycle routes in disparate locations, assemblages of materials, sounds and images have evolved. The gifted fragments are sent through the postal system and respectively transformed through a reciprocal alchemy; the assemblages pro-creating as they grow, like plants in bundles, roots or clusters to form sculptures, soundscapes and a documented archive of material thinking and making.
Through the physical exchange of abject remnants of nature collected from our daily walks and cycle routes in disparate locations, assemblages of materials, sounds and images have evolved. The gifted fragments are sent through the postal system and respectively transformed through a reciprocal alchemy; the assemblages pro-creating as they grow, like plants in bundles, roots or clusters to form sculptures, soundscapes and a documented archive of material thinking and making.
The midges were caught in the spiders’ webs, their bodies trapped and stalled in flight, helpless as the wind they bobbed up and down.
On return from my errands, I plucked a bit of dried wild plant from this wall, delicate and architectural; its little pods like windows.
Steph Shipley |Monica Perez-Vega
2020