Back to Space was made in the context of a peer mentoring group that was formed through an open call. (The group was also called Back to Space.) I was the initiator in the project and through the group I hoped to find other artists whose life circumstances had become difficult for developing their art practice due to multiple pandemic-related changes. The requirement for participants was that, despite of difficulties, they had not lost their desire to look for a way to re-engage with their creative space and practice. 

My previous experiments with form in the medium of Instagram paved way to the success of Back to Space. Its time, audience and site-specific format was developed in my earlier performances Sketches and Anecdotes from the Studio (2021) and Instagram Residency with Aplpip Arts (2021). Both of these works also centred around themes of creative process and artistic practice and explored ways of exhibiting the works’ creation in real-time.

Back to Space was enriched by the peer mentoring group Back to Space. I was inspired to study the theoretical ideas the others had central to their thinking. The period offered an opportunity to discuss concepts like glitched self, othered bodies and digital still life, to name a few.

Back to Space was a work that sprang out of necessity to find aid to re-engage with my creative practice. The project was also fed by curiosity to perform a carefully made artwork on a site designed for advertising. Would it be possible for people looking at my work to get a sense of cohesion of the work? While relying on the image-text-time-repetition-reaction -medium of Instagram would it be comprehensible in the challenging environment of a social media channel?