Daniel Hughes-McGrail
Artist/Designer
Public Works
The Heart's Desire Projects.
1999-2000, Steel, MDF, Hammerite. 135cmx40cmx40cm. Sited in Schumacher College of Ecological Studies, Dartington, Devon.
This conceptual research based artwork started with an assumption, that all people are intrinsically joyful and good. This forces the question, what makes them believe and hence behave any differently? A series of interviews was conducted to research the question and the project expanded from there and developed into an enquiry into Hearts Desires.
It was discovered that there are some common general themes, that constellate around the notion of Heartıs Desires. When pushed to talk about the subject it causes terrific anxiety in some people. A little theoretical investigation pointed to a probable cause. It appears that commercial culture takes advantage of our deeply held desires for its own ends. It is common practice in media to create and maintain anxiety by suggesting loss or lack. In particular, to create a sense of potential loss of an object of desire. Emphasising always the impossibility of consummation.
This mediation is all pervasive in our culture. The message is so common in fact, that it has contributed to a cultural paradigm of separation and loss. These ideas of alienation are so powerful that are popularly believed to be inevitable facts of life.
Your Heart's Desires Please...
I created a series of postboxes to collect hearts desires. The postbox plays on the sense of imminence associated with letters and parcels, the inevitable delay in the process creates a pleasurable anxiety. Mirroring the potential for loss, but in a positive reflection. The perfect medium for desire.
The construction of the box is strong and trustworthy. A veritable safe with the biggest lock I could afford. They are rugged, metallic, red, permanent installations. with a gentle message, an invitation for people to post me their heart's desire. I am anonymous and they are anonymous.
These post boxes were in place for a long time, enough to become a mundane and everyday object. They became part of community life. In the process the object changed to become the focus in the field of meaning and content that people invested in it. Generating a complex field of Desire.
This field of desire supports, enhances, and nourishes all the individual contributions. The interactive process of writing and posting your heart's desire into a safe,was designed to emphasise the pleasurable side of desire and to negate the paranoiac anxiety which we are conditioned to accept in association with desire.
The boxes presence, being strong, secure and ideally permanent, contributes to the purpose of the piece. Offering the possibility of consummation of the Heart's Desire. Its presence is a reminder of its contents, put there by everyone. Mnemonic feedback creates a mental repository with similar properties as the postbox itself. Strong, positive and secure.
Measured by the response of the people who used the postboxes, this has been one of my most successful artworks to date. Strangely, Nobody asked who made it or what happened to the Heart's Desires after they where collected. They make fascinating reading.
Untitled installation
1998 Multi media, Light, Sound, and Dance Performance.
Hill Drawings
Public works.html
The Flying Man...
1997 Pictured installed at Shinners Bridge, Dartington, Devon, UK
Design for Saltash Millenium Cross Commission
2000, Infinid Model.
Solstice
1999, Celebration fire for family week at Monkton Wyld Court, Dorset, UK
