TERRESTRIAL PARADISE
2018
Participatory piece with printmaking
From Brighton based Visual Artist and Printmaker Moatzart
Here, I was again thinking about authorship and the division of labor in participatory art, as I asked the audience to print a series of lino prints for me. I had looked for a way in which the audience would be able to produce a work ultimately fully devised by me, and with printmaking this was possible.
I made the audience print this series which I called "A Terrestrial Paradise", with imagery that was symbolic of the idea. I prepared my linocuts with ink and asked people to "Print with their Feet".
I realized that and was advised that I was too subtle in making my point and that I could go even further with this. I wanted to show that even though in relational art supposedly the audience has the power and they are the makers of the work, ultimately there is always an artist behind it that controls the outcome and vision. In my next similar work, I then ask the audience to make original work for me that I then destroy, to prove this point further. I thus could give the participants even more creative control, and take it away even more harshly.