“I met a man whose name was Time, and he said ‘I must be going’.
But just how long ago that was I have no way of knowing.â€Â
The Incredible String Band, October Song
As a person who really struggles with time, artist Petra Pennington is exploring whether we can create different ways of measuring it. How do you visualise time? Is it linear, cyclic, in calendar grids, none of the above? How would you redesign time to reflect your brain, your life or your values?
The many cumulative systems of measuring time which we take for granted can be problematic to navigate. Take a day. Astronomically defined as one revolution of the Earth on its axis*, it can be expressed as 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds. It can also be described as one wink of a daisy, the flower named as a day’s eye, opening and closing with the rising and setting of the sun. How else could we talk more meaningfully about a day? Are there units of time we haven’t yet conventionally coined?
Measurements of time give us the ability to reflect discursively on the past, practically arrange and contextualise the present, and project plans into the future. But are these ‘time tools’ kind to our human and social needs, or have they trapped us in a ‘rat race’?
Over 2020/21’s pandemic lockdowns and social restrictions, it seemed that people felt they had ‘lost time’ and were asking ‘where did those years go?’ Without the celebrations and human markers to punctuate weeks, months and years, time lost its meaning. Now that life is starting to ‘get back to normal’, and with increasing anxiety about the rising cost of living, we’re seeing a return to the default mindframe, ‘I don’t have time…’
Petra is interested in exploring whether we can change the way we communicate about time to imbue it with kindness, hope and to encourage social change; changing time to reflect location or social values. Could our reimagination of time lead to something more tangible? Could we restructure our society so that people have more time to engage with things that are culturally and socially important?
Through chat and playful creative actions, Petra will invite the people of Huntly and surrounding areas to explore how our brains visualise time, and if together we can propose better/more human ways of structuring, mapping and measuring it. If time has been on your mind, please get in touch with Petra.
Slow Printing Service
Alongside the exploration of time, Petra will be offering a free/subsidised Slow Printing Service in the community. If you or your community organisation or small business might benefit from having something screen printed (on paper or fabric), please get in touch via info@deveron-projects.com.
This project is part of Deveron Projects' Culture Collective project, The School of Vernacular Skills.
