This series of site-specific installations consists of hundreds of black origami cranes suspended from the ceiling by invisible thread. Individually the cranes are exquisite, perfectly made paper sculptures. En mass they form an eerie and uncomfortably still spectacle, something that looks dynamic and erratic, frozen in time for the viewer to pass uneasily amongst.

The first Flock installation was an apparently chaotic gathering of 200 cranes, their arrangement forming a clear path winding amongst them for the audience members to pass through.

Flock II was a larger installation of 600 cranes; visitors were encouraged to make their own origami crane from brightly coloured paper and substitute it for one of the existing black ones that they could then keep for themselves. The result being that over the period of the exhibition the installation slowly changed from a precise, uniformly made and entirely black flock into a mass of colourful and erratically made flock.

Flock III was part of a group exhibition where the flock changed from a chaotic arrangement into an orderly, undulating line through the entire gallery space; around the exhibition area and out into the stairwells, foyer and toilets, delineating a path for people to follow or ignore, obstructing their movement and view of other works but continuously present wherever they went within the building.

INFORMATION

Title Flock
Year 2002/03
Materials Black paper, paper clips, invisible thread, drawing pins
Location Flock - Grazing Space
Flock II - Reactor
Flock III - The Art Exchange

ADDITIONAL

  • Flock II took place as part of the inaugural Reactor exhibition in September 2002. There is text, images, video and press cuttings of the entire exhibition at Reactor’s website
  • Flock III took place as part of the Nottingham’s short lived You Are Here Festival in July 2003 as part of a group exhibition called Re-form. The Art Exchange, where the exhibition took place, no longer exists, but thankfully it has been replaced by the imaginatively named New Art Exchange
  • Flock II encouraged visitors to make their own origami crane from brightly coloured paper and exchange it for an existing black one. If you want to know how to make them you can download the instructions as a PDF
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