Tend to Improbable Structures
2025
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |
Tend to Improbable Structures is a series of sculptural vignettes reimagining unconventional constructions my late-father built around the home, like an outdoor TV shelf under a grapevine lit by coloured bulbs, or a doormat screwed to the laminate floor so it didn’t slip. Using what was to-hand he created slices of a personal, practical utopia. Borrowing his fabrication ethos I re-imagine these forms in wood offcuts, repurposed fabric and construction paper – material remnants of lived-in spaces and a practice of working things out.
My father (the youngest of 9 children, an immigrant, at-times excluded by language) lived in an analogue world. He died in 2012 as deep-learning accelerated, nudging us towards predictability and (ultimately) inevitability. Evolving slowly over this time-frame, ‘Tend to Improbable Structures’ is both lament and call to action, exploring notions of nostalgia and a non-linguistic, analogue kind of deep-learning.
Tend to Improbable Structures was exhibited in the two-person exhibition HOLD with Jolanta Dolewska at New Glasgow Society, supported by Creative Scotland, Hope Scott Trust and The Eaton Fund. A commissioned text by Laura Haynes responded to the themes of the exhibition.
'The Long Story' is a speculative biography telling the story behind the work and also the story behind that story.
Documentation of Tend to Improbable Structures in the two-person exhibition HOLD with Jolanta Dolewska at New Glasgow Society.
