"Over the past number of years the instruction manual has represented an ongoing area of interest and research in the work of Jan McCullough. She engages with this subject on formal terms and opens up a compelling psychological study of human behaviour through exploring its conceptual possibilities. Traditionally, instruction manuals have been a source for practical solutions where experts in specific subjects provide written authority on how to repair faults and carry out tasks from scratch. The singular, authoritative voice of the 'how to' manual has now become anachronistic in an age where endless answers are readily available to us through online sources.
Taking inspiration from a 1950's manual gleaned from a second-hand shop, McCullough typed 'how to make a home' into Google, and was directed to an online chat forum in which self-described experts exchanged detailed instructions on how to make a house a home. She rented an empty suburban house on the outskirts of Belfast and room by room she carried out the strangers' advice exactly over the period of two months; from recreating the photographs they suggested, to how to position cushions on a sofa and what books to populate the shelves with. The photographs in the series document the end result of her time living and working in the house.
At odds with the ubiquitous lifestyle websites, TV programmes and websites that sell us fantasies of aspirational homes, the anonymous chat room contributors are preoccupied by an altogether more mundane approach to creating the 'ideal home.' Attention is mostly directed on the small, incidental gestures within the domestic sphere that make a house feel 'lived in'; having a cork board in the kitchen with postcards and ephemera to indicate a busy life, leaving a smattering of crumbs on the kitchen surfaces, keeping a chaotic Tupperware cupboard. As one of the online contributors stated; 'random chaos in the Tupperware cupboard = happy home.' In McCullough's task of meticulously constructing the advice of multiple strangers, her own personal opinions and feelings on the matter are suppressed. Her photographic approach remains direct and neutral, as she fulfils her role of obsessively following instruction. The performative nature of the project is made explicit as we occasionally see the artist's hand appear in the photographs, a nod to the instructional photography form the original manuals that informed the project.
The overall result of the work is both playful and unsettling. The anonymous desires of the online forum are faithfully constructed, and are often humorous in their extreme banality. However, the warmth and comfort that they aspire to is entirely absent. In this series, McCullough creates an uncanny space, where the everyday and familiar is rendered unfamiliar and strange. The uncanny atmosphere of the simulated domestic environment opens up a deep psychological space in which to consider human desire and the constant editing of identity in the eyes of another."
- Ciara Hickey
For the exhibition and publication Fotoview: Ireland, Landskrona Museum, Sweden (2016)