Look on me and be renewed, 2018 by Mark King at Science Gallery London.
Insatallation Photography: Thierry Bal
Activity Workshop Photography: Chiara Dalla Rosa
Look on me and be renewed (2018)
by Mark King in collaboration with Dr John Marsden and Changing 7
Garment tailoring by Bregje Cox and Shinkai Raza
This multi-faceted artwork was presented in the 'Free Will' section of HOOKED at Science Gallery London and on the ground floor of the building as a site-specific installation. Over the four-month duration of the exhibition digital manifestations of the project were created by the artist and presented on Instagram.
Look on me and be renewed invites us to reflect on the interplay between human beings, objects and environments, highlighting how visual prompts from our surroundings are connected to the behavioural patterns and rhythms that govern or determine our decisions and experiences.
Devised by artist Mark King in collaboration with Dr John Marsden, Professor of Addiction Psychology at King’s College London and Changing 7, a group of people with lived experience of treatment and recovery from substance use, Look on me and be renewed was developed through a series of process-led workshops where the group explored the presence of visible and invisible patterns in our daily lives. The workshop sessions included garment customization, a photography field day in London Bridge and an analysis session that considered the cognitive impact of the built environment.
The methodology behind Look on me and be renewed comes from a clinical approach used by Dr Marsden that enables his patients to gain better control over their cravings and desires by identifying visual triggers in their local environment. Mirroring Dr Marsden’s approach, each member of Changing 7 photographed the London Bridge area using disposable cameras, limited to only 27 film exposures. From those photographs, Mark King has extracted and reconfigured specific shapes and colours to create a series of vibrant patterns that are infused with a memory of the places or objects that inspired them. By reintroducing these site-specific patterns across the gallery, the public realm and digital domain, the artwork amplifies the repetitive interplay between people and their surroundings.
In the digital domain, King invites local, national and international audiences to engage with the project by taking photographs of their own surroundings and adding them to an expanding archive on Instagram with #lomabr. From the uploaded images the artist will create a limited series of bespoke patterns that will be posted to @L_O_M_A_B_R throughout the course of the exhibition.
Commissioned by UP Projects in partnership with Science Gallery at King’s College London and Team London Bridge. Supported by Turning Point and Lorraine Hewitt House. Funded by Wellcome.
studio@markkingismarkings.com