Sean Fisher
Copying Carmelo
Inspired by an encounter with Carmelo Richie, a mechanic in Malta, this performance challenges our disposable culture by highlighting the value of repairing everyday objects. In a world where everything is replaceable, this performance seeks to re-evaluate and re define our relationship with consumption, endurance and community.
The people visiting, learning to repair and watching as the night draws in, are inherently part of the work.
Date and Time: Friday 21st of June 1pm to Saturday 22nd of June 1pm
Location: Valletta Design Cluster
During a trip to Malta, I met Carmelo Richie at the front of his open workshop. He was sitting sort screws by the pavement and I started bothering him, I learnt he was a mechanic of forty years, with Scottish heritage and the saw a Suzuki Samurai parked behind him. He, just like me shared the same experience of fixing the Japanese 4×4. We bonded that afternoon as he walked me through his workshop showing me every detail, retelling the stories behind each photo. While cars retain their value through repair, many everyday objects do not, often discarded due to their cheap and replaceable nature.
In this 24-hour repair performance, I will occupy a windowed room, visible to the public, as I attempt to repair a variety of objects that people bring. The room will be divided into two sections: one for successfully repaired items and another for those deemed irreparable or due to the time constraints I didn’t complete. This visual dichotomy will provoke thought on our relationship with our material culture and our relationship with consumption. Drawing a line between Malta’s head towards westerns capitalistic materialistic mindset and Gozo more traditional self-sufficient and slow living culture.
Audience Experience:
The audience witness the process of repair and the inherent challenges faced by the products created nowadays. This performance aims to evoke a deeper understanding of value, sustainability, and the often-overlooked skill of mending. And of course they witness the endurance, of a body trying to replicate that of a production line.
Audience Requirement:
The audience is able to come and bring their objects for repair during the day, and also be able to be assisted on repairing their own object. There’s no limit on what objects you can repair. In the evening the audience can view the 24 hour performance from outside the window.
Closing:
“Copying Carmelo” is a contemplative performance that urges a shift from disposability to durability, celebrating the art of repair and the stories carried by our everyday objects.
Q&A With the artist
- Tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi I’m Sean Fisher an Artist from Scotland and New Zealand and based in the Netherlands.
- Tell us a bit about your art practice and what inspires you?
My practice blends mechanical engineering and pataphysics. I’m fascinated by metamorphosis and transformation, turning a critical eye towards our use of the planets finite resources and seek to reflect the dynamic nature of the world through multiple mediums, highlighting and responding to the absurd relationship we have towards fringe engineering cultures, and the interrelations between ecology, economics, communities and time. Whilst working I wear pataphysical goggles. Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions – this allows me to approach mechanical engineering, my first love, in a non-traditional way and experiment with new materials and techniques. By focusing on the absurd, I try to make sense of the world we live by studying, researching and practising pataphysical engineering. By starting with an object of engineering interest, I reverse engineer the part, re draw it, re mix it, re appropriate and re-contextualise it. Then by inserting myself into the assemblage of research, I, as a single component, often become part of the larger machine, generating an intimate dialogue between the viewer and the subject matter. But forever changing what it originally was, disrupting it, even breaking it. The resulting outcome is one which traverses’ humour, the natural world, nostalgia, and engineering. But also one that can be continued, refurbished and restored. The work results in a dramatic narrative that is communicated to the viewer in multiple media and across mediums, film, art and design.
- What do you hope to achieve with your residency in Malta?
“Engineering Friendships” is an art project that aims to connect two individuals who share a similar interest in mechanical engineering but live on opposite sides of Europe. The project will pair one individual from Scotland (myself) based in The Netherlands, with Camelo Ritchie, a Maltese car mechanic. We serendipitously met in Spring 2022. Myself and Charlie spoke about mundane things such as screws, nuts and bolts but also larger things like family, heritage, community, the importance of conversation and of course, making things. The idea for this project is for two people to engage in a series of activities and conversations centred around mechanical engineering, ultimately leading to the creation of an art project. This project will take on many forms of course, new mechanical devices could be made, workshops with the larger community may be undertaken, or even a short documentary film explaining what the roles of fringe engineering cultures are like in Malta. I would like for the work to be curated and showcased in an exhibition at the end of the residency, to include photos, videos, and descriptions of the project.