Simryn Gill is fascinated by the human impulse to create systems through which the world may be controlled, ordered and understood. Gill's work for International 06 presents us with a collection to be organised consisting of hundreds of objects the artist picked up from the beaches of Malaysia and the islands off Singapore, seen against the backdrop of the Mersey. As we sift through the objects we begin to re-order them according to our own ways of thinking or seeing; to recall personal experiences, perhaps, of beach-combing, and to muse on the journey through time and space the objects have made, and the changes they have undergone along the way.

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Simryn Gill is fascinated by the human impulse to create systems through which the world may be controlled, ordered and understood. Gill's work for International 06 presents us with a collection to be organised consisting of hundreds of objects the artist picked up from the beaches of Malaysia and the islands off Singapore, seen against the backdrop of the Mersey. As we sift through the objects we begin to re-order them according to our own ways of thinking or seeing; to recall personal experiences, perhaps, of beach-combing, and to muse on the journey through time and space the objects have made, and the changes they have undergone along the way.

Garland consists of hundreds of objects Gill has collected over fifteen years from the beaches of Malaysia and islands off southern Singapore. Yet only recently have they been brought together and categorised collectively as an artwork - a status achieved only by displacing the collection from its original context. The materials are presented on a table surrounded by stools on which the viewer sits. Individually the objects demand a peculiar kind of categorisation: deeply worn by wind and sea, they can seldom be defined by their original state or function. The human-made and the natural have become interchangeable.


Despite the largeness of the collection, the individual forms were all selected in their own right - colour, shape or texture singling something out for the artist's pocket. Personal experiences on the beach are recalled as we sift through pebbles and smoothed glass and begin to categorise and order them -which, of course, we do according to our own experience. Yet our own histories are not the only ones evoked. Collected by Gill, and travelling from south to north, the objects have made shifts in place, time and identity far beyond geography. They exist as residues: but of what else, and where else? Laurence Sillars

[LESS]
Garland consists of hundreds of objects Gill has collected over fifteen years from the beaches of Malaysia and islands off southern Singapore. Yet only recently have they been brought together and categorised collectively as an artwork - a status achieved only by displacing the collection from its original context. The materials are presented on a table surrounded by stools on which the viewer sits. Individually the objects demand a peculiar kind of categorisation: deeply worn by wind and sea, they can seldom be defined by their original state or function. The human-made and the natural have become interchangeable.


Despite the largeness of the collection, the individual forms were all selected in their own right - colour, shape or texture singling something out for the artist's pocket. Personal experiences on the beach are recalled as we sift through pebbles and smoothed glass and begin to categorise and order them -which, of course, we do according to our own experience. Yet our own histories are not the only ones evoked. Collected by Gill, and travelling from south to north, the objects have made shifts in place, time and identity far beyond geography. They exist as residues: but of what else, and where else? Laurence Sillars