Health and Safety
Regarding the retractability of boundaries by Liang-Jung Chen at the V&A (image: Peter Kelleher).
“We were allowed to reach out to any curator at the V&A and have a chat with them,” explains designer Liang-Jung Chen, reaching over the third-storey balustrade and out into a light well running down through the museum’s galleries. “I decided to speak to the health and safety manager [Glenn Benson].” Leaning out over the void, Chen yanks at one of the many retractable barriers that currently stretch across the space, crisscrossing and bisecting one another, setting the entire spider’s web wobbling.
Chen is the designer behind Regarding the retractability of boundaries, an installation at the V&A that has been made using Tensabarriers – the retractable belts commonly used to block off and demarcate space in airports and museums. Executed in shades of pink, blue and neon yellow (a far cry from the usual black) the stretchy barriers stretch across three floors of the museum, creating a mesh of fabric that hangs in the space, describing a three-dimensional topography of barriers and borders. When one belt is twanged or pulled, the entire volume shifts and buzzes in response.
Chen testing a version of the installation (image: Gin Tin Cheong).
Regarding the retractability of boundaries was commissioned by curator Meneesha Kellay as part of the museum’s annual Emerging Designer Commission, which was this year themed “Origins”. Chen, who is Taiwanese, drew on her own background to inform her decision to work with barriers and boundaries within the commission. “Taiwan is an island country and the border is a very sensitive topic,” she explains, obliquely referencing the relationship between Taiwan and China. “I think that my installation has this sense of precariousness – a tension that comes from this sense of insecurity inside me.”
Translated into a museological context, this play with space takes on additional resonances. Tensabarriers are the principal physical mechanism through which institutions seek to restrict and control space, flexibly demarcating which portions of a museum are accessible by the public, and which are not. “I think there's a lot to dive into in terms of public space and [consideration] of authority and who can impose restrictions on movement,” Chen explains. Through Tensabarriers, access within public spaces can be restricted, adapted or rerouted at a moment’s notice.
A scale model of the installation ((image: Liang-Jung Chen).
In this respect, Chen’s work explores an aspect of a museum’s operation that falls outside of traditional curatorial responsibilities, but which informs all discussions of museological practice. “When I first proposed this design, Glenn and the health and safety department had the right to say no, because they’re in charge of all the installations,” Chen explains. “If I hadn’t spoken to them, it wouldn't have happened, but they were so enthusiastic about having been asked – they were almost like the commissioned artist or designer.”
As such, the installation was able to go ahead, with only one mandated change to the original idea for a participatory installation that people could play with in the space. Chen pulls at the barrier anchored to the ground floor of the museum, stretching upwards into the light well, and yanks it towards her –it is something that she, as the installation’s designer is allowed to do, but which others are not given the health and safety implications. Stitched into the textile belt, close to where it enters the Tensabarrier retraction mechanism, are four words: “Please do not touch”.
Words Oli Stratford