With The Procession, Hew Locke’s manipulation of cardboard turns this poor, bland, throwaway material into life-sized figures that portray individual people with rich characteristics such as seriousness, fun and pain. I reflect on Prelude, the project where I’d used cardboard sheets to create larger than life-sized silhouettes of my fellow students - the only discerning features were the outlines of their bodies, which was in line with the context of this particular project, where I wanted a simplistic representation of different personalities that viewers could relate to. I enjoyed building and installing this work, but especially how visitors to the show were able to walk in and around the individual pieces as if they were mingling with real people.
I returned to Locke’s show several times to consider the connection between the materiality of his work and its context – that cardboard as a poor material also reflects the poverty of the people he portrayed – and how I could adapt similar techniques to a giant pop-up book and/or installation.
Cardboard is used extensively in Hew Locke’s Procession at Tate Britain. The use and ability of tape and glue to hold the pieces together are on show rather than hidden, which emphasises the poorness of cardboard, in turn reflecting the economic poorness of the people portrayed. Photo Shirley A