Jenny Pope, Personal Spaces

Tools to evoke change

Just Enough Whisk, Gut Feeling Surveyor, Wobbly Feeling Squeezer, Overwhelm Tester, Cold Feet Comb, Self Doubt Scatterer and Panic Trapper. Some of the many tools in a collection of objects that is part of an ongoing series exploring psychological change.

I capture the intangible way in which we make decisions, inform changes and how our minds deal with uncertainty. I am making these ‘nonsense’ tools, as an analogy, it is not possible to push or force these processes inside ourselves, much as we might wish to. I combine old objects, with layers of meaning and past uses, as a metaphor for the layers of past experiences and influences that have shaped us as people. The tools have both a handheld part, a connection with the body, and a business end; to cut, measure, form, gather, press, pull, comb or scrape. People are inherently ‘doers’ and these tools are an attempt to do something when actually the process of change requires more of a ‘being with’. They will be displayed in lines on the wall in a tool structure, with metal brackets to hold in place, like in a workshop/studio.

 

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