During the research phase for the exhibition Pleasure in Making at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Dunhill and O’Brien had many illuminating conversations with the exhibition’s curator Hayato Fujioka. Among other things they discussed the curious relationship between sculpture and DIY, and the many ways that DIY infuses their approach to making sculpture.
The series of short films collectively titled Shed: Twelve Stories was screened in a structure based on their studio storage shed alongside the large-scale installation Method & Apparatus to Appreciate Iroha.
Each film was based on a small everyday epiphany. These epiphanies arrived from a diverse range of triggers – squashed frogs on a road in Indonesia; linoleum samples used as draft proofing by an octogenarian; balls of wool recycled multiple times; a radio sound effects studio visited in 1963; a sleepless night worrying about a sculpture; the process of scraping paint off reclaimed pine floorboards; a cartoon about Henry Moore; an art tutor’s example of how to avoid overworking; a game of pirates using upended gym equipment; tools handled by an eight year old; the Readers Digest Repair Manual; and a sculpture professor’s belief in the transformational power of the plinth.
Each film sets out to document a moment when something profoundly sculptural has been revealed about the world, or when something worldly has been revealed about sculpture. Along the way a surprisingly personal story evolves.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Dunhill and O’Brien’s participation in the exhibition Pleasure in Making was made possible thanks to financial support from The Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
Special thanks are due to: the exhibition curator Hayato Fujioka; the linguist and translator Satoshi Ikeda; Shimadoya Gonrock for the compilation and final edit; and to voice actors Hiroaki Umemura and Rie Umemura.
Acknowledgements and thanks for images used in Plinths to Hugh Pilkington and for images used in 12a Bakers Avenue to J.L.Ordaz
SHED: TWELVE STORIES
