Lucy Joyce

My installation will be comprised of 743 balloons filled with helium and released in the Triangle Gallery. I propose to present this work during the Future Reflections conference (April 18th-20th, 2007). The Balloon Drawing will self-destruct approximately eight hours after being installed. As tiny holes in the balloons’ membrane release the helium, the taut forms will collapse and slowly float from ceiling to floor, transforming the gallery space in the process. What will be left is a mass of ribbons and latex.

This time-based work involves waiting for the floating forms to wither and fall. I am interested in working with the present moment - in considering how waiting and looking might imprint an encounter on a viewer’s memory and this in itself will become the artwork. I am interested in the idea of recreating The Balloon Drawing over and over again in different contexts and using these alternative spaces to explore different themes, including the responsibility of time, memory, disposability, and destruction. I am especially interested in ways in which the balloons might animate indoor and outdoor environments, how they might transform these different types of space. Furthermore, I wonder what might be made of the forms after they deflate and become discarded objects on the ground or floor. How, for example, might The Balloon Drawing be resurrected as part of the Future Reflections exhibition of discarded or expired work?