Past Projects – THE PROCLAMATION BENCH

Leicester was the venue for the proclamation bench as part of the British Art shows 2006 fringe events. Art group DOT invited a selection of artists to inhabit a scaled down cardboard city. For the show I produced a cardboard bench in which I left a bunch of rotting flowers, some Polaroid’s of Leicester’s Abbey Park and a marker pen. I invited people to write on the bench whilst at the same time giving them the freedom to choose what to write about. Some people dedicated the bench to missing loved ones whilst others wrote smutty jokes. Some gave advice whilst others chose to leave numbers of drug dealers.

Just like a normal bench it was people’s responsibility to look after it. Some took this responsibility to heart and were very delicate with it whilst others just wanted to destroy it. The aim was to give people the opportunity to communicate with people they never talked to whilst at the same time appealing to everyone’s mischievous side by letting them be rude or funny on something that everyone was invited to sit down on and read.