The Building Project

About

What makes a house?  What makes a home? How do we make a community?

The Building Project, by creative practice Freshwest is a collaboration with Oriel Myrddin Gallery that invites people to participate in the making of their own miniaturised settlement in which to experiment, play and debate.

Within the gallery, participants will use a simple fabrication process to make small plaster “houses” that will contribute to the creation of an intriguing model settlement which will develop and grow in-situ.

Over the course of the exhibition, creatives and artists from diverse disciplines will then be invited to intervene in the settlement to re-interpret its material properties and its meaning.

Freshwest’s Building Project is a continuation of a recurring theme in their work that they call ‘design without designing’:  “We are interested in developing processes that have clearly defined boundary’s but leave space for creative interaction and unplanned events. This allows work to grow and change as it is created, resulting in an outcome that is ultimately more expressive and engaging, and perhaps completely different to when it was originally conceived.

We are fascinated with how emotive these simple plaster cubes can become. When you invite someone to build their own “house” they impart a sense of ownership over it, and in some way, part of them resides within. Once they placed their house into the settlement, they give over some of that ownership and become part of the community. 

For us The Building Project has no preconceived end point, its evolution, outcome and meaning are ultimately in the hands of its contributors”.