Helping Hand represents the manifestation of an oblique and contrived relationship between my home’s interior and its exterior. My intention was to create a connection between the vegetable/fruit garden (as a source of food) and the home’s interior, the location where this food is prepared, cooked and consumed.
Having established that intimate relationships between myself and home are largely mediated through points of contact such as handles and switches, a decision was made to tether a rope linking an interior door handle with an apple tree branch. In this context, the rope became dynamic – a live link of sorts – as the action of opening the door was transferred and registered by a corresponding bending of the branch. Subsequently, following my passage through the door, the bent branch would straighten thereby applying tension to the rope and closing the door; a sequence of action and reaction that paralleled the dynamic associations between actual ecological participants. In linking the local and non-local, the rope could also be interpreted as a generic metaphor for other connections between the domestic and broader environment, a consequence of the transportation and consumption of non-locally produced items.