Broken Things (n_iii) (2020)

Livia Marin’s work was initially informed by the socio-political context of Chile in the 1990s, during the transformation from seventeen years of dictatorship under Pinochet’s brutal regime to a democracy dominated by extreme neo-liberal economic reforms, which was no less authoritarian and despotic. Goods were imported from the global market, destroying many local artisans.

Marin produces work characterised by largescale installations and the appropriation of mass-produced and mass-consumed objects. It explores our relationship to objects when they are produced and consumed on such a scale, and how their meaning can be elevated and disrupted. She ponders how identities can be designated through these objects, and how the daily relationship one forms with them allows the object to enter a new phase of significance.

Broken Things III and Nomad Patterns I are from two different series of works, which are made from fragments of everyday objects that have been frozen as they are collapsing; whether they are melting under heat or collapsing under pressure of keeping themselves in shape is undetermined. These works aim to reflect on aspects of loss and care, disposal and preservation, and on the relationship we develop with the day-to-day objects that populate our lives.

Whereas Broken Things employs commercially available floral and miscellaneous transferprinted motifs, Nomad Patterns takes as its central figure the well-known Willow Pattern motif, an image of which is taken from second-hand or antique objects and then reproduced by means of a custom-made transfer print. Willow Pattern hails back to the Industrial Revolution, and while the blue and white ceramic pattern was once associated with aristocracy, through mass dissemination its meaning has changed. The items are all broken but, paradoxically, complete as pieces of art. These pieces have been acquired by The Atkinson, Southport. They relate well to the Atkinsons’ collection of blue and white wares, and the museum has previously collected work by Peter Scott, from his Cockle Pickers series. The Atkinson is working on a future project with Gordon Cheung, which will revisit blue and white ceramics and issues of global economics – themes that Marin addresses.

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