The Alternative Cardiff Story (2014)

The Alternative Cardiff Story (2014)

Bad Copy: Cardiff 

A Museums at Night collaboration between Janette Parris and the Cardiff Story Museum. Artists who contributed to creating bad copies of objects in the collection included a work by Alison Gill who has given an outline  of her approach to creating the ‘Bad Copy’ below:

I like to produce work, which operates at multiple levels – like a building with many rooms or a story that rewards many readings. I wanted to keep the idea of masks, the presentation of a character or self but reflect the fact that they were in the Cardiff Museum of Storytelling. The first idea that came to mind, given the title “bad-copy” was Pinocchio – hence referencing the story of a boy who tells lies, is mischievous and is himself a copy of a real boy. The process of making the piece also reflects this idea of copying – since I made a cast of a cast.

What I thought of the object? I was sent a single photo – they looked like two cheap plastic, theatrical masks – basic props. I saw them as representing theatre and hence one form of storytelling.

Why this interpretation? The story of Pinocchio was written originally by Carlo Collodi (quite different from the Walt Disney copy). The splendid original tells the story of a puppet who starts out as a piece of talking wood and who, after many trials, succeeds in becoming a ”real boy”. The story has fairy tale like qualities but Pinocchio is also transgressive and selfish committing childhood ‘sins’ of disobedience, loafing and skipping school. The story has influenced many artists and one such work is Paul McCarthy’s Pinocchio Pipenose Household Dilemma (1994). I like the fact that the subject has many references and I hope this will help those who see it to imagine their own story about it.  

Alison Gill