Home to a couple individuals.
This place is overgrown with nettles, trees, brambles, weeds, rotting trunks, rubbish, waste, insects, scrap and a generous number of alcohol remnants. To just get through the initial walkway is a task in itself. Being careful where to put your foot without damaging yourself is much of an unwelcoming aspect to somebody's home. If you're not wearing long sleeved clothes, you'll be stung head to toe in nettles. There's bricks, metal rods, electrical wire, severed trees, pylons, an abandoned power station, needles, legal highs, bongs, cans, pillows, shoes, wrappers, bottles, tires, toilet seats, kettles. And in the middle, near the power station, just one apple tree. Got me thinking in relation to the Tree of Knowledge.
"And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die".
I started to build a tree.
With exhibition approaching, I found myself getting to know my 'suppliers' personally. I found myself empathising for those who live so poorly because of their habits. These people are genuine, fun people. Their company isn't uncomfortable, and I found them welcome me into their environment. I'd regularly collect cans off of certain people living around the city. They would welcome me to stay for a drink, usually a can of some form. Rarely ever would it be a brew.
Their weekly drinking habit allowed me to recycle their waste into a sculpture constructed around a supported column in the centre of my exhibition area. Without the help of these individuals, I wouldn't have been able to create the work that I wish to display for exhibit.
The cans gradually built the structure of a tree. A metaphor originating from the widely known Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 2:16-17). I was interested in the idea of a tree bearing a forbidden fruit, intrigued about the idea of somebody being tempted, or sucked in by temptation. 'A Man Walks into a Pub' describes the irony of how cider is produced from apples (the believed-to-be forbidden fruit).
Trees start from a seed. The seed represents the start of the addiction. Trees anchor themselves into the ground with their roots. The roots are symbolic to how an addiction anchors itself into somebody. The tree begins to form branches, a symbolisation of how the addiction gets bigger, and is unpredictable. The branches grow leaves that fall, a metaphor of loss of self and wasting away. Decay.
Initially I wanted to suggest the idea of the addiction taking over by suggesting that through the cans taking over the space. Using the structure of the building itself I wanted to try and suggest that by building around the column in the middle of the exhibiting area, producing a large scale tree that allowed people to walk close to and see how many cans where needed for the tree. Approximately 1,500 cans where used to build the structure. And if you say on average you can buy a 10 pack for £10, a lot of money has been spent on this habit.
So the tree is a metaphor of a growing addiction, and links the nature of the wasteland to the religious aspect of the Tree of Knowledge. The idea of somebody giving into temptation and taking a 'fruit' from the tree, a symbol of sin.
"You will not certainly die" the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil".