I think one thing all of us have in common – and don’t lie to yourself now – is the ability to hoard things. Objects, art, books, clothes- we all have those things that, for whatever reason, we can’t seem to throw away.
Becky Brewis unpicks this through her exhibition ‘Slow Edit’ currently on show at Leith School of Art, exploring the materiality of the domestic space. Through a combination of ceramics and accompanying works, Brewis ultimately poses the question, why do we keep the things we keep?
The exhibition was born from a stack of old photographs from the artist’s childhood in the 1990s.
Welcoming the rise of digital cameras and photo albums, Brewis clings to a sense of materiality. The exhibition grows from this idea, exploring how memories were once and still are embedded in the materials around us.
‘Quick Photo’ is one work which stood out to me, a ceramic Kodak film envelope which was pinned to the first wall of the exhibition. The exhibition’s starting point comes through here. Brewis touches on that idea of material memories, permanent moments. The practice of ceramics within this exhibition is, to me, a way to harness the importance of these objects. She’s making the impermanent, permanent, and making the unseen, seen.
This theme feeds into her work on wall paper, recreating her studio wallpaper in ceramic casts, she comments on the importance of space, realizing the sentimentality through four walls. Brewis’s work is underpinned by the idea of personal connection. The wallpaper on her studio walls, to her, is important enough to encapsulate in stone, but to others it is simply that, wallpaper.
Part of the beauty of Brewis’s collection is differentiating what is and isn’t art, and I mean this in the highest of compliments. Her work holds such a real quality, you almost believe it as such. It was only in asking my friend what her favorite piece was, in which she replied, “oh it has to be the slippers!” which exposed me to this. What I had believed to be someone’s shoes left by the door, were in fact a perfectly sculpted pair of ceramic slippers. This ties into my earlier point: one thing can hold the world’s importance to one person, and can be idly walked past by another.
Brewis’s exhibition invites a great level of analysis into our everyday lives and the space we surround ourselves in. To conclude this piece, I’ll pose you with two questions. One, what in your life are you holding onto? And the perhaps more pressing question, why do you think that is?
“At the end of Leith Walk and The Water of Leith is The Shore, Edinburgh” by @andrewghayes is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.