Should We Distinguish Between This And That?
Loxford Tower, Manchester, April 2007
Catalogue Text

Joanne Masding

Standing above “Dwell On it/Under it/In it a Little,” one has a God’s eye view. The miniature plastic animals on a pale green carpet appear as if grazing in a field. Dog, giraffe, sheep, cow and fish, meet in some kind of equivalence. They evoke a childhood world where fussing over accuracy of scale is unimportant. Imagination compensates for the failings of actuality.

Do as the work invites and lower yourself to carpet level. Here the animals become characters, anthropomorphised in tiny shelters. A precarious piece of folded card stands in for a home. The skirting board becomes a horizon. Viewing “Dwell on it/Under it/In it a Little,” one has an oscillating relationship with space and scale. Move in closer towards the animals then move away again towards the window. Here more tiny characters are juxtaposed with an external view, providing a further experience of a different scale.

Masding places objects together in odd conglomerates and temporary situations to question how we view our surroundings. She is interested in the oddities of perception, and is intrigued by how we consider the sky as being above us even though it begins at the edge of the ground. The horizon, a line that appears distant, is merely a product of where we stand.

Amelia Crouch