The poetics of the fragment

Abstract

Installation art has two defining features. The first is that it requires the experience of the viewer or visitor for its completion. This is on the understanding that what is offered in an installation is distributed in space, and therefore time, and it is the experience of the visitor that binds the elements together as they move in and around the installation’s various spaces. The second is that, in the absence of a single object that draws the eye’s attention, the viewer becomes ‘decentred’. They no longer have the security of knowing that, in this moment, they have direct and complete engagement with the work that stands before them. This paper argues that when the various elements making up the installation are understood as fragments, they can combine with the distributed and decentred aspects of installation to create a form of poetic expression. The arguments for understanding the elements of an installation as fragments, and for the poetic potential of the fragment, are made with reference to Sean Edwards' 2019 Cymru yn Fenis Wales in Venice installation.