DESIGN SOMETHING TO PUT ON A BONFIRE.

FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE.
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS.

Kamila Gomes Cintra.
2009.
www.kamilagomescintra.com.br
clodovilda@hotmail.com

The ceremonial and ritualistic aspect of a bonfire attracts me, especially in relation to the overall themes of the exhibition.

For my recent degree show in Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins, I designed a head piece, a flag holder and a neck piece (see pictures) which were based upon my interest in the concept of 'bricolage'. Bricolage involves an ingenious use of available materials instead of the sourcing of specific materials for a fixed design.

This was an attempt to reverse the cultural processes I have undergone in my life, and to allow myself to be stirred and influenced by the symbolism and techniques of forager societies as well as their historical and political background and the mass-produced system we established: all this went into creating my own bricolage.

My proposal for "Remember I am going to mark you" is to create paper replicas of my degree show pieces, which could later be burned on a bonfire.
 
The fragility of the paper models, which will be exactly to scale, will reflect the vulnerability of my work in the 'real world', my fear of subjecting it to scrutiny, and the temporality of artistic creation particularly in a degree setting. The models' susceptibility to burning, and their aesthetic qualities, means that they could become ritual or totemic objects, representatives of a culture that passes away. The ritual and ceremony inherent in the process of bricolage was what I was also referencing with my degree show pieces; this will be carried through into their replicas almost as though the replicas were their more fragile offspring. There is also a ritualistic aspect to re-making something, albeit in a different material, particularly in the knowledge that it will be destroyed.

This will reflect some of my feelings towards the completion of my degree in terms of the temptation to surrender to more commercial pathways versus the desire to turn inwards and also to romanticise the future...My degree show pieces represent so much but at the same time have a feeling of futility...so should I just burn effigies of them?