I cannot exactly recall when I first came across the term ‘photo-conceptualism’. I probably reacted to it in much the same way as I did to the various other ‘isms’ that have fashioned ‘new ideas’. It again seems fascinating under its own ‘ism’ when Jemima Stehli presented her recent sculpture work The Upsetting Table, 2003 at the Jeffrey Charles Gallery.

This influential London-based artist addresses changes in the social context of art. What appears to recur in most of her photographic works, is the depiction of the staged individual form or forms to illustrate psychological and sexual differences, as in: Strip (1999/2000), Self-Portrait with Grace (2000), Mirror no. 1, 2 & 3 (2001), Standing Nude (2001/2002) and MM (2003).

With The Upsetting Table, Stehli moves away from recreating moments in art history and popular culture to centre on using her own work as a reference point. Here, she has made her studio the subject through exploring the build up of materials used in her working environment by replicating her own studio table peppered with the paraphernalia of her practice: polaroids, photographs, sketchbooks, boxes, tape and tea mugs. What’s more, to further heighten the tension of the piece there is the possibility of collapse.

This performance plays with the notion that there is no objectification without identification. The table and paraphernalia set in the space are isolated, thus encouraging the confusion of real space with psychological space: the confusion of the psychoanalytic object with the real object. It incorporates an object that in reality has an everyday use, but here the everyday use of the studio table is denied simply by virtue of the isolation within the gallery and the impending collapse. Stehli reveals a desire to offer an insight into her photographic work assisted by artists and curators Kev Rice and Dave Smith, founders of the Jeffrey Charles Gallery, who become central characters within this performance of anarchic order and rational chaos to evoke a sense of engagement and displacement of volume, space and interval. The Upsetting Table divulges several levels of coherent meaning and then shifts in meaning; it acts and reacts meaningfully. I arranged to view the video edition in the company of Stehli, Rice and Smith.

Sheyi Bankale (SB): The Upsetting Table is a conceptual performance that mixes work objects and workspace, and includes the artist and curator’s visual appearance in the work. What was the inspiration for the piece?

Jemima Stehli (JS): I think for me, it was the space that was my initial starting point with Kev and Dave. And then I just worked towards this idea… I just knew it was a piece of work for that environment.

Kev Rice (KR): For us, it was the fact that Jemima came with an idea that was a starting point… Most of the projects we do in the space, we look to be involved in the whole process rather than inviting someone to come and put their work on the walls and divorce ourselves from the whole creative process of the show. With Jemima, it was a concept we were really interested in because she came to us when the idea was in its infancy, so we all became involved right from the beginning.

Dave Smith (DS): When we first met Jemima, I was confused about the technical side of it before the whole process started. How it was going to work was the main issue.

KR: In the first conversation we had, Jemima spoke about an idea where a table with her work on it would collapse. So logically, the first thing you have to think about is, can we technically facilitate this idea? And then we went through possible means of doing it, looking at whether it would be a high-tech or a low-tech solution.

DS: The original idea was that it would stand itself back up and all Jemima’s work would reassemble itself.

KR: To technically achieve this was almost impossible. So then, as the idea developed, it kind of changed.

SB: How does The Upsetting Table relate to your previous photographic works?

JS: For me, it was definitely something that makes sense of the conceptual relationships within the work. It is always important that the work is not just about photography but also about the performance aspect of it. Initially, I enjoyed the idea of a partly collaborative production but we slightly changed the idea. I think what happened working with Kev and Dave was that their role in the piece changed as they became involved in the performance of it and so it turned into a collaborative, more complex piece.

KR: In hindsight, I see a lot of links between some of the photographs you’ve done where people taking the photograph have been included in the photograph. This is the first time I have seen the video and my involvement in it – what I have just seen reinforces that point.

JS: That’s what I thought about the video. When I watched it afterwards, I really thought about how much your personalities were important. This work could be shown with the Standing Nude and Studio Nude photographs because, to me, they are another version of collapse in a sense. The endurance aspect of the piece made me realise too, the connection with my other photographic works (such as Strip for instance), where I got people involved in the work and it became more demanding for everybody than anticipated. Just as you decide to do something on a conceptual level, it gets out of hand; that’s what I like about this piece, which is evident on the video.

SB: There is such detailed precision required to erect the table, photographs and objects. How important to the work is this formulaic approach in terms of space and discipline?

KR: Jemima instigated the formal structure – she would set it up and we would attempt to replicate it.

JS: I set up all the objects on the table so they would be as near as possible to my own working mess. It was also to do with how all the stuff would fill the gallery, so for me, it was good when it hit the other side of the room and encroached on the space of the audience.

DS: I personally have never known a gallery room so intimately, so the space is immediately charged with our knowledge of that space.

JS: That’s exactly how I felt, but it’s at that point that I realised how much you two were also part of this piece. I can imagine doing this somewhere else, but there would always be this work, which is almost a work that stands alone: ‘The Upsetting Table at Jeffrey Charles Gallery’.

KR: There is one moment that I quite liked when the table would fall and I would decide to leave it on the ground and someone coming into the room could not get into the room. That was a powerful symbol.

JS: The idea of ‘upsetting’ was taken from a photographic and personal reference for me, but that’s not really important. I think the ‘upsetting’ element for me is that it is about upsetting expectations. That’s very much what I wanted, once I got to the idea of then reconstructing it; as developing that moment when you construct art, you have this revered relationship with the object, so this is like the fucked-up version, because every time you try and put it together, it just kind of collapses. It’s kind of intended to be a radical piece for me, as an artist, not allowing it to ever quite come together.

SB: As a series of choreographed scenes, did the piece collapse as expected?

KR: It’s unconscious but conscious to the extent that it’s how the piece was intended to function. The video did capture what was seen; then I guess the camera angles chosen from the video exaggerated that idea. I thought the camera angle that was low seemed to work the best, but the aerial camera angles were the best explanation of the piece. There were times when the table collapsed and the boxes would open and you would get a spread of photographs from the same series… So that, coupled with a dramatic fall, would probably add up to filling the criteria of a ‘good fall’.

DS: The stillness at the end is my favourite moment of the whole thing, rather than just the table, which at the beginning is quite impregnable.

JS: It worked, even when some people came in and saw the table and did not know it’s supposed to collapse.

SB: What was the intended effect of the work?

KR: The experience the viewer gets from the show depends on when they arrived. I quite like the idea of not informing people it had just collapsed and allowing them to have an experience.

DS: Any member of the audience that was not aware of what was going to happen had that anticipation.

KR: At the private view people were looking at the space, they knew something was going to happen and happen so many times and therefore, thought that if they missed out they missed the show. Dave and I felt it was more than an event, so you did not have to see it fall to get the experience of the show.

DS: I should imagine that for people coming to this cold, it would have been quite confusing. The main question would be: “Is it art, a conceptual idea in an art gallery?” People here kept on picking objects up, where they would not have done if it had been a more obvious space.

JS: I had a number of prints and polaroids that were unique works on the table. I think a couple of them were pinched, but not many. It is surprising because what it shows is certain ideas or expectations of an art piece.

KR: But if you do want someone to interact with a piece of art it can sometimes be very difficult to make people touch it or take it so, in a way, it broke down those barriers.

DS: Someone came in once and ate a bit of biscuit from the table. It had been there for ages…