MINIATURES

Exploring the Monstrous and the Miniature

BA(Hons) FINE ART
FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY
24 FEB - 11 MAR 2023
GRAYS WHARF GALLERY

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

‘Monsters themselves are defined, most basically, as ambiguities.’
- Patricia MacCormack, Posthuman Teratology

For the third consecutive year, students from the BA(Hons) Fine Art course at Falmouth University present an exhibition of miniature artworks at Grays Wharf. This year’s project invites students to explore, respond to and engage with some aspect of ‘the monstrous’.

The monstrous can be broadly understood as a confounding eruption of ambiguity that resists definition and categorisation. (1)

The monstrous gives voice and agency to those othered, marginalised and demonised by the status quo. Leaning into and embracing monstrosity can be understood as a subversive inhabitation of that which is queer, weird, wonky, abject or awkward… (2)

Monstrosity in a generative sense is a celebration of symbiotic entanglement – of teeming, diverse and disobedient life. But a more destructive sense of the monstrous lurks in the toxic terrors unleased by humans – pollution, pathogens, plastics etc. – that seep into and corrupt fragile living systems, both big and small. (3)

By definition, a miniature mimics a larger, pre-existing object. But not only does the miniature refuse the functionality of its full-size counterpart, it means differently too. This is the “dissonance that lies at the heart of miniaturisation.” (4) Is the ambiguity of the monstrous in any way synonymous with the uncanny quality of the miniature? Might the unsettling otherworldly-ness of the miniature birth a monstrous encounter?

Tiny bronze hands reach out from a lump of granite. They are raised, as if in reverence or praise, but they could be imploring too. A cluster of miniature ceramic pots looks ostensibly well-mannered, but on closer inspection they refuse to disclose the contents they bear. A meticulously detailed 3D caricature of a tired and careworn face. Our capacity to empathise is short-circuited however, for this is a diminutive eggcup.

While these specific pieces all engage with the dissonant, absurd or ambiguous aspects of the monstrous, a significant number of submissions attempt to approach the unthinkable monstrosity of environmental degradation and collapse.

The miniature is uniquely able to shrink that which is vast and overwhelming to a scale we can begin to think with. Here then, we have a collection of small artworks that, through the process of miniaturisation, summon to our attention the biggest behemoths of our precarious times.

Edited version of a text by Simon Clark

References
(1) Jack Halberstam, An Introduction to Gothic Monstrosity
(2) Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (ed), The Monster Theory Reader
(3) Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, Nils Bubandt (eds), Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
(4) Jack Davy and Charlotte Dixon (eds), Worlds in Miniature, Contemplating Miniaturisation in Global Material Culture

WORKS PICTURED (from top):
Yay-an Davies, Cabinet Reshuffle
Charlie Cole, Birthday
Exhibition overview, Lottie Matthews
Sonia Ahmad, Life