impossible sites
The use of paper, both as a medium and a motif, has been a recurring aspect of Rachael Haynes’s practice. Paper speaks of order and precision, while also being malleable, vulnerable and delicate. In Impossible Sites, Haynes picked up on these different qualities of paper to produce a site-specific installation that explored the architecture of the Development Space in which it was exhibited. In particular, she examined how the rectangular, corridor-shaped gallery could be defined by a set of irregular, organically shaped paper objects. In turn, she also explored how the objects could belong in such a space. This was not just the resolution of a site specific problem: Haynes’s concentration on the delicacy and fragility of the paper revealed a concern (something akin to a nurturing sentiment) with how these objects would ‘fit in’ with the stone-walled gallery.
The works were made by folding paper horizontally into concertina shapes. These were then lacerated at measured, regular intervals so that when bent, the cut strips projected outwards. The fragility of this lacerated paper made the works seem vulnerable and contrasted with the hardness of the gallery walls. The sheets of cut paper were folded back on themselves, in increasing increments, and while some formed organic, shell or cocoon-like shapes, others looked like tiny fragile skeletons. The cutout sections gave the works an airy delicacy; one could almost imagine them moving and breathing, with tendril-like strips outstretched. The light-handed, pared-back manner in which Haynes had worked the paper and the watery washes of ink colouring it gave the works a supreme lightness.
Despite the differences in form between the objects and the gallery space, these works responded directly to their environment