one only for the wind
Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway, 2019One Only for the Wind was created by collecting every phrase in Virgina Woolfs ‘the waves’ that begins with the word ‘one’. I was interested in the way ‘one’ shifts between the individual and the collective, reffering to a single person or a collective simultaneously. The resulting text is printed on large sail flags positioned outside the gallery. The flags are exposed to wind and weather, so the words are constantly folding, stretching, disappearing and reappearing.
The flag also brings ideas of territory, identity and ownership into the work. Taking language from Woolf’s text and placing it onto a form associated with declaration and sovereignty raises questions about extraction and authorship. In the text ‘the waves’ the subjective perspective is constanly shifting and it is often hard to pin the voice down to one identifiable voice. On the sail flags, the language cannot be fully held or fixed, it moves with the wind, between voices and clarity.
