My artwork can be seen to challenge institutionalised thinking. In my photography, for example, I do this by parodying the institution of the commercialization of identity. However, in my main work of performance, institutionalised thinking is questioned by concentrating on the relationship between work and play. The performances can be in a workshop, a corridor, or a grazing field. In such spaces, I break conventional meanings by creatively playing, using banal objects, from a skipping rope to inflatable swimming rings. With no apparent meaning or purpose in the performances, a surreality is created, so resisting the strength, the power of ‘normalised’ thinking.
My pieces associate with the repetitiousness of the ‘everyday’, so as to create a link between the everyday and art, where each piece encapsulates many ‘self created utopian moments’ (Foucault). Here, the normalising effects of power and being institutionalised at the level of most routine experience can be seen as the most resistant. Also, the use of CCTV cameras in performances, which are incorporated into my installation work, is an ironic simile for the panopticon, where the surreality of my performances can be seen to gain control over the ‘panoptical’, institutionalised viewpoint.