SOCIAL SCULPTURE

Selected for Transition 9 - The Exchange, Penzance, Daniels and Gillard’s Social Sculpture aimed to explore the relationship between art and social function.

One social sculpture was produced per day for five days, for five different social groups of people. The sculptures took the form of action, object, text or activity, with a different group invited each day to interact, explore and discuss the social sculpture produced specifically for them. Each work was informed by stereotype, assumption and general facts about the groups that took part.
These groups were:

Penwith Community Radio

UCF MA Curatorial Practice

Cornwall College Book Binding Group

Two additional social sculptures were constructed for unknown and unsuspecting participants. The Mobile Outreach Social Sculpture took the form of an action carried out in the public realm. ‘POLISH’ [verb] was a Social Sculpture aimed at gallery visitors, assumedly of a more middle-class demographic.

Each Social Sculpture became a platform for discussion and debate, exploring issues surrounding art and social function, and the relationship between art, artists and specific social groups we worked with.
The gallery space became an active workshop, an arena for interaction with the social sculptures and a static space for the resulting documentation. One A0 size black and white print was produced after each social sculpture, as a physical document of the interaction and also an artwork in its own right.