Copyright © 2023 Mitzi Dabrowski
My current practice uses a multi-disciplinary approach to expand fleeting moments from live music gigs into tangible works. The intention behind my work is to elongate the ephemeral nature of particular nights in music venues, to give these moments more attention and time to potentially dissect the energy and change in behaviour people experience.
Found objects have become a major part of my sculptural works because they are taken directly from music gigs, and encourage me to work around an already determined material. I collect the unclaimed lost property that has been left behind after gigs and club nights from local venues in Bath to use as a visual symbol of the chaotic circumstances they were lost in. In 2022, I worked with found objects to make sculptures by gluing together possessions and spray painting them all one colour. This unifies the separate objects to become one piece that cannot be extracted to return the unwanted items to their owners. I also make wall based work with items I receive many duplicates of such as house keys and clothing to create an analogy of a crowd. Furthermore, carbon copy paper drawings are my way of capturing music events as they happen. By placing the carbon paper on the floor with a sheet beneath it to be printed onto, I have recorded multiple nights of rock band The Wytches’ tour through the footprints and movement marks left by the band and the crowd. To me it is a more physical and tactile experience than photographing the events as they take place.
During my residency at KARST, I explored a more spiritual outlook in connection to sound and crowd formation, studying the link between crowd movements and particle pattern formations, as well as the way faith and music sub cultures can be compared, thinking about the positive effect of community and self-expression in venues that omit feelings of comfort and freedom.
All of these projects are linked by a common thread of youth culture and its ever-changing forms, specifically those who gather in clubs and music venues to express themselves. The notion of being in the centre of a passionate crowd can be thrilling and an opportunity to act in a primitive, liberated way, yet it can also be a source of danger from mosh pits and overfilled venue capacity. I believe disillusionment breeds the need for community and third spaces such as venues to rejoice in any form of music.
As for other practitioners who have impacted my ideas, Mark Dion, Gillian Wearing, and Derek Jarman name a few. Archival ways of collecting and presenting objects, observing the society we are amongst and being playful with certain aspects of it, and creating work in an eclectic, multi-disciplinary manner are characteristics of these artists which I can see direct reflections of in my own processes.