Available resources, Orchard Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland

I had photographs taken of my baby son, Ezra, playing with 2 dead rabbits. He interacted with them with both ease and delight, seemingly their ‘deadness’ ‘being no different to the ‘deadness’ of toys.
I asked Oxford Scientific Films to photograph a drop of water falling into and extinguishing a flame, with the steam and smoke as obvious, intrinsic parts of the transformation.
I was invited to be part of an exhibition in Derry, Northern Ireland and I chose to exhibit in a disused funeral parlour. I sat with Ezra in the corner of the space with a sheet of glass diagonally across in front of us enclosing us behind. Speaking and singing to Ezra I slowly painted the glass white to enable the projection of both the rabbit and candle images to become clearer and clearer whilst blocking the live image of myself holding Ezra.

“It was an intelligent and poetic work, coping well with the notion of sensual replacement—- present replaced by past, seeing replaced by hearing, transparent surface ( the glass) being made opaque and then ‘revealing’ again what was underneath by means of projected transparencies ( the slides) The various parts of the work— the composition “`(opposition of corner and flat wall, light and darkness) the technique (melting together and overlaying of images)— place this performance firmly into the mainstream of research into visual culture.

Bean juxtaposes high and low culture with an ease available only to someone in the know”

“Available Resources” catalogue 1991

These images have been exhibited in various combined triptychs in several exhibitions.