The coming together of two life-and-work couples has resulted in a project of two distinct parts where time and vestigial traces play significant roles. “It felt a bit like being back at art school, enjoying the gift of shared knowledge and outside perspectives,” says James Russell, half of JAMESPLUMB with Hannah Plumb of their collaboration with Glithero. “It’s easy to get caught up in the world of your own studio, and this came as a disruption.”
The couples share many traits. In neither studio does any one individual claim specific authorship for an action or idea; and both have a deep interest in the idea of things left behind. Precisely because of these points of communication, and also because of the complications of Covid throughout the first half of 2021, they decided that each studio would create a standalone piece, that would enhance each other in the exhibition scenario.
The result is a cabinet by JAMESPLUMB, composed of an old piece that had been languishing in their workshop, crossed through with a new shelf of blackened steel; and a new series of Glithero’s Hold Me Vases, where a photosensitive gelatin coating on the vessels captures the images of human hands that have rotated them in a beam light. In the spirit of collaboration, the two couples managed to come together to fulfil this last process, and the vases bear the marks of all four pairs of hands.
Excerpt from “Together: The Power of Collaboration” exhibition Catalogue. Words by Caroline Roux