About Objects of No Fixed Abode
Objects of No Fixed Abode is the title I gave to a body of work I created during a Residency in Somerstown, Portsmouth for The Hampshire Sculpture trust in 1993-95. The work represents the beginning of my professional practice as an artist and illustrates my move from the studio to the public realm. It was the basis for my Masters Degree in Art Design and Media at the University of Portsmouth and a Solo Exhibition at The Aspex Gallery in 1994.
The work set out to question ideas of time and context, audience, ownership and contemporary arts biggest challenge - value. For example; I can buy a packet of crisps for 20 pence, win a £20,000 pound prize inside it, then be charged £2000 for dropping litter, then put it on a gallery wall and sell it for £2000. I can lock the empty bag to a fence in a public place, to retain ownership and value when I’m not there, but is it art, rubbish or both and who says so anyway?
I had transferred to Portsmouth from Wimbledon School of Art in order to fulfil the one year Residency in a purpose built studio. I was studying the concepts of Site Specific Art in London but was having difficulty getting to grips with it. Whilst there, I was ‘signing on’ at the dole office as way of paying my way on the post graduate course. Following some difficult times I found myself labelled with ‘no fixed abode’ (NFA) by the Social Security Office. I was sneaking back in to my studio at night, sleeping on Wimbledon Common or hitching to and from London to my parents near Portsmouth.
I found too much irony in my personal circumstance and the nature of the art I was trying to do for the course. The Portsmouth Residency was a rescue. Inspired in the comfort of my new studio I embarked cathartically on the antithesis of site specific art. There is a lengthy postgraduate thesis related to the work you can read but in hindsight the simplicity of this art povera should speak for itself.
‘I am interested in the idea that something can be monumental in significance rather than scale. To compete with the everyday and create memorable objects despite the clutter surrounding us.’
Pete Codling, Objects NFA