The Plaza Principle

Exploiting the scale and architectural qualities of the abandoned TK Maxx store, the exhibition will include a range of contemporary art practice, but with an emphasis on sculpture, film and audio-visual work. It will include work by recent graduates selected from northern art schools, and other young artists, together with a number of more established international artists. Located in the empty shell of a former shopping space, the project exists in the context of economic recession and attempts by local authorities, business and commercial developers to disguise economic decline, commercial inactivity and property blight with a facade of cultural activity. The Plaza Principle will include attempts to create a critical framework within which to acknowledge and critique its own complicity in such processes.
Three spoons are bound together with a rubber band to form a unit, like a tripod. Each unit tessellates with others to build a pyramidal structure. Over time, the rubber in the band perishes and the unit collapses. The whole sculpture is then undermined and experiences a random decay. The materials return back to plastic spoons and rubber bands.
This process was filmed with time-lapse photography programmed to take one frame every twenty minutes, day and night for 4 months, a video of this decay is exhibited next to the sculpture.