Manifesting a type of ongoing provisionality and compressed material range, they continually augment the space and generate different environmental qualities and atmospherical states - recalling the raw aesthetic and material settings associated with the production of butter.
Because of the mobility of movement in a number of them, they create different spatial arrangements and emphasise the contingencies of the space. These figural elements have a pronounced sense of theatricality and enact a pas-de-deux between body and space that shifts the viewer’s relationship to the artifacts and objects in the collection.
DATUM ARCHITECTURE SERIES
Untreated mild steel walls line interface points, and a seamless new recycled rubber floor surface connects the series of new cabinet-like elements with white-washed birch plywood skins – a thickened wall screen, benches, tables, and screens, and enact a choreographed exchange with the existing structure and artifacts. It was for this reason, that the opening of the space was marked by a dance performance “IM-I AM” – choreographed and performed by Sara Hernandez –which reinterpreted the role of women in the history of butter making through bodily gesture and sound. On the other, it was intended as a space of performance – where live traditional butter-making demonstrations could occur with groups of visitors and school children and where public events like dance or folk-singing could take place. This involved the subtle eroding of existing walls and boundaries and installing a number of cabinet-like elements – subtly detailed to evoke whitewashed domestic and agricultural settings. On one hand, it involved the installation of new critical services: a greeting space at the entry, a digital screening space, a live-demonstration area, and a working kitchen where glass butter-making instruments could be cleaned. Working between 'flatness' and 'depth', we adopted a tactical design approach and dual position. The programmatic limits for the re-design of the Butter Museum were established so that it would act in the traditional sense of artifact display. In these ways, it allowed for distinct spatial ‘slippages’ between spaces - producing a space of ongoing performance. This was achieved by connecting different exhibit areas through a series of new spatial ‘slits’ and the installation of cabinet-like elements that mediate the artifacts. Within this context, the design evolved as a working and curatorial strategy - attempting to re-appraise the cultural and social historicities that are held in the Museum’s collection. At street level, it is framed by the distinctive rotunda of the Benson-designed Firkin Crane (1855). Anne’s Church (1722) and is part of the original site of the Cork Butter Exchange – built in 1770 and added to by Sir John Benson in 1849 in the form of a monumental entrance portico with paired Doric columns. The Butter Museum is part of a distinctive urban arrangement in Shandon, Cork.
0 kommentar(er)
