Sarah Sparkes: Lost Portals
Reflection of a Ben Woodeson sculpture on the surface of Sarah Sparkes’ piece ‘Flue’ as part of Saturation Point ‘Other Rooms’ exhibition (BasementArtsProject 2015). Photo: Adam Glatherine
In 2015, Patrick Morrissey and Hanz Hanccock of Saturation Point invited me to take part in the exhibition 'Other Rooms'. I was excited by the show's intriguing title and by the nature of the exhibition space 'Basement Arts Project' which was exactly that – an artist run project space in a basement. A site visit was arranged.
Patrick and Hanz had been very interested in my light works featuring optical illusions of infinite spaces . They explained that the exhibition would be in darkness with the artworks the only source of light. Initially I thought I might show existing work and that the site visit would clear up where to place this. However, when I saw the space things developed.
The basement space, below ground level, had a buried feeling. In the semi-darkness the noises of the world outside were subdued, heightened the senses. I became aware of a hole in one of the walls, close to floor level. An old fireplace? Certainly a conduit of some kind and leading to the upper levels of the house, possibly beyond, to the outside world. So, here was a portal to an 'Other Room'. I was inspired to make a new work, a direct intervention, making visible what this entrance and exit might represent.
Sarah Sparkes ‘Flue’ as part of Saturation Point ‘Other Rooms’ (BasementArtsProject 2015). Photo: Sarah Sparkes
So, I took measurement of the hole in the wall and back at my studio built a coal fire red infinity tunnel, embedded in a coal-like material, to fit snuggly in the old fireplace. I called this piece FLUE as direct reference to the hole's original function. It also sounds like flew as in, to flee to fly, implying an escape. With it's portal or worm-hole like appearance, the implication is escape to another dimension, thought this illusory other space cannot be entered materially.
It is almost ten years on from Other Rooms and I am back in the Basement, with Saturation Point for 'Lost Portals'. It is thrilling to return to this amazing space, but also daunting and I wonder how I can respond this time –the fireplace is empty now, but I feel the haunting presence of FLUE
OK, then I will acknowledge this ghost , a ghost after all, has been said to be the past returning.
Great Grandfather’s Magic Lantern Slide
When I was at art school, I learnt that my great grandfather had been a magic lanternist. It turned out that my parents had stowed his magic lantern and boxes of glass slides in their shed and attic. I rescued the slides from the shed where years of damp had badly damaged most of them. The images were degraded by water damage and mycorrhiza like tendrils and somehow were more beautiful and haunting for it.
Great Grandfather’s Magic Lantern Slides
I had wondered what to do with the slides for many years. They needed some illuminating magic, but were not robust enough to survive as working lantern slides. So, I made light boxes to display them, adding infinity illusions, that can only be glimpsed by peeping between the missing parts of the image.
One of these magic lantern light boxes features a domestic scene, a woman in a living room with a fireplace, where a visionary space appears on the wall above the mantle piece and the woman looks into this. Her back is to us and she is transfixed by something beyond the walls of her room.
I placed this piece, 'The Mantlepiece at the Centre of the Universe', above the hole in the wall where I first installed FLUE and at about the height of a mantle piece.
If you look closely, behind the image on the slide, you will glimpse something bigger than the box that contains it.
Sarah Sparkes 2024