‘Permission to Speak’, Solo Exhibition, Freud Museum, Maresfield Gardens, London, (2002).
For this solo exhibition in Freud’s former home I exhibited a series of blank jigsaw puzzles, in various rooms including Freud’s study, onto which I had drawn flocks of swallows. I then removed the drawings leaving an absence. In the upper rooms I displayed the absented birds on the walls of the space as though in flight, evoking the delight of rediscovering what was thought to be lost.
The title of the work ‘Permission to Speak’ refers to my childhood - a time when children were to be seen and not heard and required to speak only when spoken to.
“…Permission to Speak, recently at the Freud Museum, explored the ability of the blank form to assimilate loss, silence and nothingness. The artist placed a number of blank, white puzzles on tables in the house. Each one was made with proportions similar to the surface on which it sat. Some, accordingly, were stout and square while others took off like an epic frieze or tapestry. Chairs were left drawn up to the tables as though puzzlers had wandered off for a break and could return soon to resume their strange and meticulous work. The puzzles were incomplete with oddly shaped patches of absent pieces. The shape of the holes revealed the surface of the tables underneath and suggested that there may be some hidden scheme linking the missing elements. It was only on going upstairs that this scheme was revealed. The pieces that had been separated from the blank puzzles were found to contain images of swallows, drawn in outline and then penned in to create dark silhouettes. Exhibited on the walls of the emptiest room in the house these pieces were joined together, their sudden dark forms suggesting startled flight, a rising flock. They appeared caught in the reluctant act of assuming representation…”
- Dr Nicki Coutts
Click Here to read Joanne Lee’s text ‘Permission to Speak’ written to accompany this exhibition.
In the library outside Freud’s study I placed a copy of my blank book lost for words….The book itself does not contain any printed information or instruction. A blank text that needs no translation. Would this blankness be ‘read’ the same in different languages? The cover of the book is white blotting paper a material for absorbing ‘knowledge’ perhaps. Only on this detachable surface is printed the title, ISBN and a quote from Maurice Blanchot - ‘About this book I had promised myself to say nothing …’ The book is also installed in other libraries in England, Europe, Japan, America and Canada as an act of intervention, a donation or a ‘gift’. Most of the libraries have no knowledge that the book is there, its placement evidenced only by a photograph. Click Here to find out more about lost for words....
