The Well of Bottled Emotion
2018 | Site-Specific Installation & Sound Work
The Factory, Djúpavík, Iceland
The Well of Bottled Emotion was a site-specific installation created within a former oil storage tank at the abandoned herring factory in Djúpavík, Iceland.
Combining sculpture, sound, water, stone and symbolic objects, the work explored memory, perception and personal transformation. Thirty-eight glass bottles occupied the flooded interior of the tank, each representing a year of life and containing handwritten notes relating to formative experiences and moments of change.
Within the wider Landscape as Mirror, Self as Myth trajectory, the work marks an expansion from symbolic image and performance into immersive, spatial and material installation.
Two forms of bottle appeared throughout the installation. Sealed bottles floated within the water, representing experiences not yet consciously acknowledged. Open bottles rested on balanced stone structures, marking material that had surfaced into awareness and undergone reflection.
Water functioned as both material and metaphor. The bottles drifted through the flooded tank while weather, rain and changing light continually altered the atmosphere of the installation.
A looping sound work, composed from live sound-bath recordings and field recordings, played throughout the exhibition, extending the installation into an immersive acoustic environment.
Viewing the Work
The installation could be seen through a small opening at the base of the tank. Visitors were required to kneel and lean into the structure, from where the interior could never be seen in its entirety.
The act of viewing therefore became part of the work: the audience encountered the installation through partial visibility, physical proximity and an altered field of vision.
Installation Process
Constructed over three days within the flooded tank, the work required large stones, sound equipment and sculptural elements to be moved through the small access opening.
The installation developed directly in response to the existing architecture, water, weather and acoustic properties of the site.
The tank had previously stored oil associated with the factory’s herring-processing industry; its reuse introduced a further relationship between containment, material history and the personal acts of containment represented by the bottles.
The Well of Bottled Emotion, 2018
Site-specific installation and sound work
The Factory, Djúpavík, Iceland
Materials: glass bottles, handwritten text, stone, water, sound
38 sculptural bottle elements
Sound: looping audio installation
Installation documentation and further archival material available on request.
