Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought

Boy do i love this book! I've been working on some new projects recently and doing some research and theoretical thinking about a few things and whenever i've looked up a relevant topic in this book, my mind just explodes with the relevance of it all. One project I'm working on is a public art project based at a development site and i'm going back to the stacks of red, but instead of milk crates, i'm looking at fibreglass red cubes. I looked up a reference for 'development' and found the following:

developmental cycle: Concept develped by Meyer Fortes to understand the changes which take place within the Domestic Group. It provided as a concept the link between the individual and society. Fortes analysed the domestic group as the focus of social reproduction, where members move through a cycles of recognised roles at different stages of their lives. The cycle is expressed in spatial or residential arrangements. Fortes identified 3 phases in the developmental cycle: 1. expansion - the period of marriage, birth and rearing of children; 2. fission - the marriage of children, departure from the domestic group and the establishment of a new conjugal group; 3. replacement - death of parents and birth of children to second generation. Relations between individuals within the domestic group may be reflected in its different stages of development; e.g tension between father and son over succession may be lessened through the establishment of a separate residence.

For me, that stuff is loaded with connections to the work i was thinking about and has completely validated my original idea - not mention giving me further study for some of the relations between groups and within groups!

After the slog of putting on a show, it's so nice to move onto the next work and see it rolling out before your eyes. Other projects I'm working on have also had connections to theories in this fantastic publication and i'm sure i'll be quoting it again really soon!