Vivid Imagination

Canary Gallery, March 2004

VIVIDMOVES is an animated film recording the two weeks when Canary turned blue.

In May 2004 artist Claire van der Plas and visitors to Canary Gallery coloured in the whole space - walls, floor, even some of the ceiling – with blue Vivid markers. Every two minutes during the process a camera automatically took a picture. These pictures are VIVIDMOVES.

Running time: 3 min 45 secs

Vivid Imagination imagined an alternative dimension where a felt-tip Claire lost as a child passed the time waiting to be found by colouring in the walls, floor, furniture and ceiling of the Lost Things Waiting Room.

During the course of the show visitors contributed to the marking of the gallery walls. They brought words and pictures from their own memories and imaginations. They coloured over other marks. Their marks were also coloured over.

Every two minutes a camera automatically recorded the progress. Details were also photographed. The photographs became an animation, shrinking a gallery to only 3 inches square on a computer screen and two weeks to only 3 minutes.

Artist's Statement

“I’ve been thinking about my blue felt tip. You'd think I could let it go after all these years but no.

Losing the blue felt meant the set was incomplete. Also it was a very good colour. Losing it bugged me and I dreamt repeatedly that I’d found it. Like down the side of the bed or something simple like that. It wasn’t there though. I checked. I also dreamt about checking and not finding it.  That was a very realistic dream.

It's often been proposed that there must be a great lost sock depository in another dimension.

Maybe they all have their own dimensions, the lost objects. Millions of lost dimensions. Probably the lost dimensions are small and boring, bit like a waiting room. Because they’d only have to wait there till they were found right? So there wouldn’t be much laid on.

My felt tip has been lost for some time, and probably it got bored…”