Emily speed is an artist whose spatial and architectural practice considers the transience of the built environment, balancing our desire to create spaces around us with their inevitable decay. Her seemingly fragile constructions investigate our physical relationship to space and our need to be ‘housed’.

The act of inhabiting a dwelling seems to be a key concept in your work. How does our psychological and physical relationship with architecture inform your practice?

At the core of my work is the relationship between the body and architecture. I like the (very old) idea that the body is it’s own kind of building but I also think the places that we inhabit have a huge influence on us and shape the way we are. The vocabulary of architecture is borrowed for so many areas of our lives and the simple form of a wall, for example, can have so many different meanings. I often make work for a specific location and in those instances I think a lot about the place and architecture, usually fixating on some small detail about the way a place has been used.

Particular sites and your own experience of inhabiting them often inform your work, such as in Mattdress & Drawers. Perhaps you could explain how you use this process in your practice?

It’s the past inhabitants of spaces that tend to influence site-specific works. I am drawn to the patched of most use, whether it is abrasion against a wall or the dull patina of a doorknob and it’s these traces of inhabitants that feed into the work and often affect the form the spaces will take. In Mattdress and Drawers I used the furniture from the bedrooms in the old student halls at Yorkshire Sculpture Park because these buildings are earmarked for demolition. I wanted to inhabit the space for one last time and used the materials available (drawers and wardrobes) to build in there. In a way I think of these one-person constructions as a mix between clothing/building (habit/habitation).

Your work encompass an interesting mixture of scale, creating model-like representations of architecture, but that relate very specifically to the size of the human body, such as in 'Inhabitant'. What are your thoughts on the relationship between the site of personal interaction with space and the vast complexities of the inhabiting urban space?

I was thinking about this exact relationship when I made the work ‘Inhabitant’ during a residency in Linz. It became a really important piece because it was the first time I was in my work, but the idea of carrying or wearing a space or making this small occupied and portable thing is directly related to existing in a large city and in your own psychological space at the same time.

Your practice celebrates the process of creating a space or, more specifically, man's desire to build. Do you have an ideal concept of this creative interaction and how do you investigate such possibilities in your practice?

I think something that seems ideal at one point rarely stays the ideal. It’s the slippery nature of ideas and possibility that interests me; I also think the desire to build is never ending because of that. The basic purpose of dwelling aside, buildings consistently become more ambitious as the possibilities change with materials and new construction techniques.

There is a tension in your work that highlights the transient nature of the built environment. Do you think it is important that we see spaces as changeable rather than static?

The precariousness in my work stems from the fact that I see many things as depending on a very fine balance. Often a lot of things depend on one element or person to stay together and I think that is mirrored in my work, for example where two materials are dependant on their tension to stay attached. Spaces are of course changeable and often at the mercy of changing tastes and ideas about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ architecture. Living and working in Liverpool has probably been a big influence in many ways, especially given the disappearance of whole areas of housing over the last 50 years.

You seem to have quite a specific aesthetic and use a lot of cardboard, packaging and other throwaway materials. Do these materials signify the 'idea of architecture' rather than a fixed construct or do they have a relation to the memory of a space: what is left behind by the act of inhabiting?

I constantly return to packaging as a material. I love its pliability and strength and the fact that it has been a carrier or messenger before. Generally I use found and recycled materials; sometimes this is very important in relation to the space, as in Mattdress and Drawers, where the furniture had been used by inhabitants. At other times it is simply to do with an economy of means and an attempt to re-use and transform materials, assigning them a new purpose. The works made from cardboard and corex and similar materials reference the architectural model and those materials that are often used in their production. I like how a piece of ribbed corex can shift in scale to suggest a great wall of corrugated metal.

As well as installations and sculpture you also make book works. What aspect of your practice do you explore through this medium?

My artist’s books are often made to accompany a bigger work and they provide me with a means to explore more of the ideas behind the work using text and other imagery in a way that isn’t totally explicit. I’d liken the books to bridges, opening up the connection between my ideas and the works, but I see the books as containing more spaces in a way too, as they need time to be experienced.

Currently you have a solo show, 'Make Shift', at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Perhaps you could talk about the project and also what's next for you?

The project at Yorkshire Sculpture Park includes a few existing works, but also show the results of working on site over the last few months. I have spent time in the student halls and also made a work on the upper lake in the park called Cabanon. This was made in response to the huge amount of work that has been happening at the park over the last few months, restoring the landscape to its original form, restoring views and opening access to the follies. I was interested in the choices we make about what is worth keeping and what can be discarded. I was also thinking about building something made in response to the architecture in the park, but that belonged to its own time. Foucault wrote a really interesting paper called ‘Of Other Spaces’ on Heterotopias, stating the boat as the ultimate example of a Heterotopia “the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea”. The Cabanon does not have the infinity of the sea and so is trapped forever in the water of the Park. It is a cabin on top of a coracle (a type of boat made to be carried on a person’s back), a very modest dwelling that I also saw as another folly for the park. I sailed inside the work around the islands of the upper lake in a documented performance.

In many ways this period at the park has really changed the way I’ve been working and I am now planning a quiet few months in the studio on some new work. I am also off to Japan for a few weeks, where I will be doing some research on costume and the fractured body, especially in Noh and Kabuki.

http://emilyspeed.co.uk/
MAKE SHIFT blog: http://emilyspeed.tumblr.com/
Michel Foucault. Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias.
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html

Is there an artist, curator or gallery you'd like to see featured in our 'Selected' series? You can login/register with artselector and then submit your recommendation here.