Barbara Steele

 Site Specific Installation Work

As part of my art practice I am involved in making installations in places and sites in the local vicinity.

  These installations are about specific places and what they mean to people, expressed both as images and words.

I usually visit and photograph the site over a period of several months, trying to capture seasonal changes, and these images are then printed onto chinese joss paper.  When installed I invite the audience to participate in the work by drawing/ writing their own reflections about the place 'a screen to reflect your own projections'.

During the installation period I document the work by taking photographs since it is constantlyevolving.  When the installation is removed from the site I put the individual pieces of joss paper into a handmade book so that it becomes both a documentation and another form of artwork to be exhibited and viewed in a different way. I may also combine these images and words into a smaller, separate bookwork (also see bookworks  and prints section).

'Response to Brimblecombe'  Farrants Farm, Dunsford, Devon, September 2002

'Responses', Art Farm Project, Rocombe Farm, Stokeinteignhead, Devon, September 2003

'Traces', Art Farm Project, Rocombe Farm, Stokeinteignhead, Devon, September 2003

'Response to Eden', Eden Project, Cornwall, October 2004

'Reflections at St Pancras', St Pancras Church, Exeter, October 2004

'Reflections at Dartington Hall', in The Japanese Garden,

during Ways with Words at the  Dartington Hall Estate, Devon, July 2005

'Reflections at West Town Farm'

for devonartworks, September 2007