Pauline Bailey

Stories Behind The Scars

 

'I have always believed in the power of creativity to change lives and through my practice within the participatory arts sector, have witnessed many times how people are affected by opportunities to get involved in some of the projects that I've conducted over the years.

Test Bed is giving me an opportunity to focus on particular methodologies and explorations of processes for engaging the public in a project that deals with intimate or sensitive issues. Some of the key elements that interest me are centred on how to engage people who want to give creative expression to parts of their lives but still enable them to ‘be themselves without revealing themselves' , thus allowing space for those who want to remain anonymous.

Everyone has a story to tell about a scar they have, whether it's a physical one from an accident or operation or emotional scarring from a relationship or situation. For Test Bed I have been collecting and sharing stories with local women about their scars and intend to create a mixed media textile installation that will be an interpretation of those stories shared with me. Collectively we are taking back control over something that has affected and shaped us, giving it a new spin by creating a shrine for celebrating our ‘warrior marks'

Members of the public will also be encouraged to share and contribute their ‘stories behind the scars' that will be added to the installation. '

So Pauline made a series of workshops, with women at community venues near the shop and with women attending the shop. She then took images and stories from these workshops and represented them in a series of sculptures fashioned from textiles, many of them traditional in origin. The finished results looked something like this -

Pauline Bailey's work is focused on identity, heritage, sense of place and, dereliction with the stories behind those spaces. She uses her work as a tool for empowerment, especially when using video, performance, photography, collage or other mixed media forms when collaborating with excluded groups.

In recent years she has become more involved in making mixed-medium large scale installations that requires a direct involvement from the audience by being an integral part of the space. People are invited to experience the work, by being ‘in' the work. Pauline explores and uses diverse materials often quite visceral in nature and fused with or placed alongside digital formats. She also experiments with found objects, the stories behind them or spaces they are found.

Her work is always abstract and usually conceptual in nature whether it is live art, collage or a video piece and she draws on influences of other artists ranging from Keith Piper, Lorna Simpson and Fred Wilson to Louise Bourgeois and Mike Nelson.