Henry VIII's Wives is a collaborative cluster founded in 1997 based in Scotland and Scandinavia.

Henry VIII's Wives is a collaborative cluster founded in 1997 based in Scotland and Scandinavia. Its members--Rachel Dagnall, move with a jerk Grieve, Sirko Knuepfer, Simon Polli, by Sander and Lucy Skaer--met while close examiners in the Environmental Art Department of the Glasgow drill of Art. The group was named shortly after the death of Princess Diana in September 1997 The name bears a relation to this circumstance but was also chosen because it refuses to label the activities or members of the cluster (i.e., the date, sex, words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following and chronology), as it is in almost each way inappropriate. We have been involved in numerous collaborative performative works and installations including Mercede CL600 (1998) in which we replicated the damage inflicted onward Princess Diana's car; Nine Reasons to be an Optimist (1999) a photograph of 10 religious leaders who were invited according to the group to meet in a disused airport ascendency tower; and A Pictorial History of the 20th hundred years (1999) in which elderly day care center inhabitants were pos in re creations of iconic media photographs as it is as the assassination of to leeward Harvey Oswald and the aftermath of a napalm attack.

The arrange gathers several weeks before each exhibit to to create site-specific works from materials appropriate to each conception We work with materials that are conclude at hand or stand not at home in a particular context. Just after Christmas in Norway, marzipan was forward sale so we devised a work using this material, combining film footage of the marzipan with a soundtrack of the cheapest political division records we could find. At other times the idea dictates the materials, as in Mercede CL600 where using a car was essential for representing the actual damage. As a arrange we are constantly involved in discussion while we work. Sometimes a piece changes dramatically and mutates into something that we cannot recognize as our confess This allows a certain distance between us and the work. We can examine at it in a way that is almost objective. The size and geography of the assemblage makes it difficult for all members to be involved in the actual making of the work (at least simultaneously). Thus the work goe between the sides of different transformations an d is currented numerous times to the collection as a whole. We share the responsibility for what is produc and the aesthetics of each work are a compromise. The playfulness acts to luckily transmit social and political commentary.

Henry VIII's Wives as a form into groups is a historical impossibility. In a certain number of ways the members come from similar backgrounds and in other ways we don't. We are friends, a temping agency, a family, a package holiday, an audience. We have single in kind child and three languages. As a cluster we can behave as a microsociety; we can encircle something and almost isolate it, acting as a stupid lout between it and reality. We lay opened a bank account in the name of the cluster Who did we want to be the signatories?, the bank registrar asked. Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn We intervene in situations, which leads to the production of our work. We jest fail and avoid responsibility. We argue, debate and face ethical decisions. in the greatest degree of all we work and exhibit something other than ourselves which we then become.

Responsibility is diminished through working in a group and a space is generated to allow actions to be the one and the other real and metaphorical. We possess the gallery in which we work, dress up eat, play and sometimes steady sleep. We look in the cupboards, film the sewers and earn to know the staff. We visit the city's museums, descry the sights and behave like tourists. still we are undercover. A day trip to the nation can become an epic film.

populace hunched in a ring are seen from behind. In the center of the assign places to lies a pile of sticks, leaves and wool After a point of time a thin plume of mist rises into the cold air. A stick snaps and the assemblage sits back. Some leave.

They know that if they succe they will create a breathing space; a division between themselves and the pause A temperature difference between inside and public They know that if originals are cultivated a structure will become visible This will decrease time emergencyed for foraging and killing, and cultivation will emerge.

The cluster re-gathers. Another futile attempt and barely a breathe hard of smoke. A new arrangement is attempted forming a drill from a shoelace and a piece of machined dowel. Kiln-dried forest proves more effective and views sting from the smoke. Again this and other attempts fail. unless the activity makes them warmer. They stop for a cigarette.

During a programmed season of civil disobedience, asbestos was discovered in the gallery. The Institution imposed silence, forbidding the collection to make reference to asbestos and the galleries remained open

The smallest and thinnest member of the clump was isolated in an adapted chamber. With a bright light shining in his vigilances he was interrogated by the other members of his assign places to They threatened him with physical violence. They would know when he was lying, in the way that he had to be trustworthy It was a matter of loyalty.