Dialogues and Definitions: conversation with Martin Derbyshire
By Gerald Mak
Martin Derbyshire is a British artist who has been based in Beijing for nine years. In February of this year, his installation Dialogues and Definitions was exhibited at 798 Space in Beijing’s Dashanzi Art District. The following interview is an edited version of a conversation that took place between Gerald Mak, a regular contributer to That’s Beijing, and Derbyshire.
Gerald Mak: You are of the Baha’i Faith. Can you explain a little bit about the faith and how it influences your work?
Martin Derbyshire: The Baha’i Faith offers a vision of humankind as essentially unified in its primary spiritual and material needs, yet infinitely diverse in its capacity to express them in action. Furthermore, it defines religion and science as compatible means of generating and acquiring knowledge about aspects of human life. The Writings of Baha’u’llah prioritize the right and responsibility of the individual to investigate reality and make social justice dependent upon the exercising of this right. Furthermore, they elevate the practice of art to the rank of worship and confirm that art, in its very nature, is an expression of divine inspiration. All of these themes have profoundly influenced the formal and conceptual development of my work. Central to my world-view and practice as an artist is the belief that the absolute and eternal manifests itself through a continuous shift of appearances. Though this idea was made explicit by Hegel, it has its roots in the Writings of Baha’u’llah, which provide a description of a unified and progressive unfolding of spiritual truth that is both the substance and imperative of history. "Abdu’l-Baha uses the metaphor of water to describe this potential for multi-dimensional and diversified expression, in which the subject takes on the form of and is circumscribed by whatever vessel it falls or is placed in, whilst retaining its essence." For me, this perspective predicates an art that is illusive, transformative, and portable, in my case developing, as James Joyce put it: "in silence, cunning and exile." The ongoing focus of my work, therefore is made explicit within the parameters of a specific piece, reflected via narrative or associative connections between a variety of spatial and temporal forms and contexts, e.g. performance, documentation and research. Furthermore, it is constructed within a variety of environments, employing a broad range of materials and involving collaboration with others. I don’t view its production as separate from the rest of my life, and view artists as co-ordinators or facillitators at the interface between ideas and physical reality.
GM: What kind of dialogue do you hope to create with your work? How is it specific to a Chinese audience?
MD: The dialogue I am engaged in includes visual, conceptual and social dimensions and explores the relationship between them. Specifically, it seeks to address the relationship between spiritual and material aspects of existence, and remove distinctions between generators, practitioners and so-called consumers of knowledge by encouraging interaction and reflection. Dialogues and Definitions was created and installed within an industrial space (798 Space), which is at the same time an historical relic. The project sought to create a seamless visual and conceptual join (or dialogue) with the space and everything it represents, whilst at the same time asking questions about the relationship between intellectual constructs and physical environment, and the states of being and doing that they reflect and inspire.
GM: Have you gotten good responses to your work?
MD: The response to the last show has been very positive, both within Beijing’s artistic community and without. Viewers have found the show challenging and moving. Having a global sense of one’s identity and of history engenders a degree of empathy that removes barriers between individuals and cultures. People find such a perspective refreshing and empowering, as it constitutes a validation of their own experience and insights, and enables them to review them from within a broader international perspective.
GM: What do you have planned for the future?
MD: I regard my work as a continuous process of development within a framework of principle concerns, with its formal and conceptual starting points intrinsic to itself. The next show will include elements of the last one, including the documentation of its various stages of transformation. Its format will be the result of combining pre-existent elements with forms created in and taken from the next space. All of my work represents a synthesis of the found, made, designed and manufactured, and exists in the space where they run into and become indistinguishable from each other.
GM: Is Beijing a work of art?
MD: Yes, [it is] a marriage of found object and site-specific work in progress!
The article was originally published in That’s Beijing in April 2004.
