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Andy Bir

Close up of communion bread on a dribbling tongue

Close up of communion bread on a dribbling tongue

I am a visual artist who uses the body to engage physically and intimately with the internal realities that we construct in relation to lived experience. My practice includes sculpture, performance, text, spoken word, photography, and moving image. Much of my work is fuelled by a traumatic childhood—a time when I often misinterpreted the intimacy on offer. My approach to trauma—interrogating the internal realities constructed in relation to trauma and not the trauma itself—explores the possibility of taking responsibility for our current emotional state rather than remaining the victim of trauma.

My dissertation, From the Inside Out, is part of the RCA's permanent library collection.

Upcoming exhibitions

Off-RCA: Atelier Alonso, Arles, France (3 - 9 July, 2023)

RCA2023: Graduate Show - Truman Brewery, London (13 - 16 July, 2023)

Two young boys dressed in Cub Scout uniforms and a text conversation

Two young boys dressed in Cub Scout uniforms and a text conversation

I struggle to understand time. My present is my past and my future. To move forward, I always think back.

For most of my adult life, I have challenged the narrative of memory. Even after accepting a memory as real-life experience, I sometimes refuse to accept that the experience remembered made any part of me. Because if my experiences made me, I breathe someone else’s breath.

I used to believe in reincarnation until I realised that if we all come back with no memory of who we were before, death is always eternal oblivion. I tell myself there’s something liberating about knowing that nothing I say or do will last beyond the last person who remembers.

Understanding understanding

Do you have to know that my father was a roofer

to understand the lead used in these images?

Do you have to know that the lead belonged to my father

to understand why I used it to make his crown?

Do you have to know about my fear that one day I will become my father

to understand why I needed to feel the weight of his crown on my head?

Do you have to know about my father's fists

to understand how difficult it was for me to wear his crown?

Do you have to know that my father was sectioned

to understand why I fear that part of him is also a part of me?

Do you have to know that my sister is schizophrenic

to understand how deep this fear inside me runs?

Do you have to know all the ugly truths contained by this body

to understand how this body means more than what you see?

Perhaps you don't have to know anything at all.

Perhaps the only person who needs to understand is me.

Medium:

Photography, sculpture, performance, text

containment dna entanglement heritage identity-and-body mental-health molybdomancy sculpture self-awareness violence

It Felt Like Love

intimate adjective (in-tə-mət)

marked by a warm friendship developing through long association.
suggesting informal warmth or privacy.
engaged in, involving, or marked by sex or sexual relations.
of a very personal or private nature.
marked by very close association, contact, or familiarity.
intrinsic, essential.
belonging to or characterizing one's deepest nature.

intimate noun (in-tə-mət)

a very close friend or confidant: an intimate friend.

intimate verb (in-tə-māt)

to communicate delicately and indirectly.
to make known especially publicly or formally.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimate [accessed 06/06/23]

Medium:

Moving image, sculpture, photography

anonymity connections digital-relationships imagination intimacy loneliness performance physical-presence pleasure reality sculpture

Medium:

Photography, sculpture, performance

abandoment abuse mental-health performance religion sculpture self-awareness survival trauma

existentialism experimental identity-and-body process research self-portraiture self-reflection

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About

Royal College of Art

Registered Office: Royal College of Art,
Kensington Gore, South Kensington,
London SW7 2EU