HELENA HAMILTON

Let's Pretend Installation University Street, Belfast, N. Ireland 2008

BW2 copy

Photograph courtesy of Joan Alexander www.joanalexanderphotography.co.uk

‘Let’s Pretend’ was a durational action of seven months, consisting of three parts. Location: Artists Bedroom The artist states: "I see this as a personal self portrait of myself and a poetic perception of our personal and social lives, where society has been reduced to a subconscious mass of perverted realities with no authentic freedom, reducing people to machine like objects who regurgitate perceived expectations and play the role of a civilized individual very well...let's pretend."

Isolation 5 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes

 The first part took place from 00:00 Sunday 17th Feb ‘08 to 05:05 Friday 22nd Feb ’08, giving a duration of 5 days 5 hours 5 minutes. This reflected the 7810 days since my birth made equivalent to minutes (i.e. 1 day equals 1 minute). In this time I isolated myself in my bedroom that I had previously wallpapered with a digitally generated repetitive grid of my 'hush' self-portraits (each portrait being approximately 1cm high). During the duration of the project I set a task of creating another image using the wallpaper as a pixel matrix. The actions followed a disciplined, repetitive routine, with allocated toilet breaks and 3 basic meals. In the room I had a Bible, the children’s book Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a sketch pad, paint, ink, charcoal and a camera. My room was then open for a public viewing the following evening after the durational period.

Photographs courtesy of Joan Alexander www.joanalexanderphotography.co.uk

Wake

  The second phase consisted of me living in this room up until 20th August ‘08. On this date I held a wake (the third phase), this consisted of me inviting friends and family to paint whatever they pleased over the walls of my bedroom. The next few days were spent stripping the walls and restoring the room to its original state before moving out of the premises on 31st August ‘08. The physicality of this piece is now solely through documentation.