A wave of emotion hits Bristol

By dclensy

As you walk into the latest exhibition at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, you are confronted by what at first glance appears to be an enormous wave made up of hundreds of hanging objects.

Each of the 999 individual objects is wrapped in colourful fabric, and as you turn the corner, you realise that what at first appeared to be a wave, becomes a magic carpet – apparently flying through the exhibition room.

Both visual metaphors are significant. The artist, Alinah Azadeh came up with the "magic carpet" formation as a nod to her half-Iranian heritage.

But the root of the piece is in another enormous wave – one that swept through the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004, leaving unimaginable destruction in its wake – and Alinah's mother was one of its victims.

This exhibition, entitled The Gifts, which opened on Saturday at the Park Row venue, was sparked by the grief that engulfed Alinah after her mother's life was swept away midway through a Christmas holiday in Thailand.

"I started gathering together items that belonged to my mother – simple things like her phone's sim card and her driving licence," she says.

"I found myself with 30 of these objects, which in themselves shouldn't have been important, if it wasn't for the connection they gave me to my mother.

"I started to wrap the items in fabric. Somehow it seemed to help me work through my grief. It's something that the ancient Pacific Island cultures did with objects, to preserve the connection the objects had with those who had once owned them.

"I found it comforting, and eventually I started to extend it out to include items from my own life – old love letters, photographs, things that belonged to my children – all items that meant a lot to me, and told the story of my life."

Alinah hung 99 of these items in a spiral formation – representing the circular nature of life.

She adds: "Everyone seemed to be taken with the idea, so I thought it would be nice to extend it out to include items that belonged to other people.

"I put a call out for items. We had posters and postcards in the gallery, and I toured around Bristol schools and social groups to do workshops on the theme of ritual wrapping.

"I decided to try to collect a total of 999 items, because in many ancient cultures the number nine represented a 'complete' number. It was a metaphor for completing the emotional process I and the item donors had with these objects."

But even Alinah could not have predicted the vast range of items that were donated to the project. There is everything from well-loved teddy bears to a baby daughter's first shoes.

Many of the items have clearly strong emotional ties. There are bundles of family letters, a blind man's first white stick, and one donor has even wrapped the ashes of her mother and father.

"It is extraordinary how varied the items were," Alinah says. "From the apparently trivial to the profoundly moving. It says so much about the way we imprint meaning on to inanimate objects because of the way they connect us to people or times in our lives that are gone."

Some objects may at first appear rather mundane – a rear bicycle lamp, for example, until you read the object's plaque, which reveals that the lamp was the last birthday present given to the donor from her father before his death.

Then there is the miniature Eiffel Tower which was a holiday gift from somebody's grandmother the year before her death.

"It was very moving to work with the contributors, and go through the wrapping process with them," adds Alinah. "We've not yet decided what will happen to the piece after this exhibition, but I would very much like to be able to keep it all together on display somewhere."

The magic carpet of items now hangs beside Alinah's original spiral of objects in the exhibition. The final object of all, at the end of the spiral, is a wrapped photograph of Alinah's mother – taken on Christmas Day 2004 on a beach in Phuket – the day before she died.

"Bringing this exhibition together has helped my grieving process," Alinah says. "It's been about laying things to rest, not only for me, but also for the other 900 people from across Bristol who have taken part."

● The Gifts runs as part of The Shape of Things To Come exhibition, at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery until April 18. The exhibition also features work by ceramics artist Rosa Nguyen. Admission is free. For more details, visit www.bristol.gov.uk/museums.