When I moved back to Scotland, I was keen to commit my energies to a more ambitious piece. I was then invited to make an installation for the Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition at the RSA, which is a pretty terrible open submission exhibition. But at least I was promised a full gallery to myself, and I had three months in which to make the work. I was also desperate to make a decent finished installation from these penguins, although because I sold the ones I made in Copenhagen I needed to make all seven new ones from scratch.

However, as the deadline for the exhibition drew closer, the control I had over the installation diminished equally. I was soon told that I was unable to carpet straight to the floor and fill the space in case they needed to put more sculpture in, and that people would not be allowed to wander around on the same level as the penguins 'for health and safety reasons'. Lastly, I was told I would not be able to control the lighting in the space, and was then moved from a standard white-walled gallery into the sculpture court. All of this meant that the final piece was almost completely compromised, and I was unable to show some light-sculptures I had planned to put into the installation.

I am therefore currently seeking somewhere else to install this work, where I will be able to control lighting and how the viewer interacts with the work.

Text: Sandy Smith, 2007

All images: "Life is good (Victoria Beckham, Hilary Clinton, Julia Roberts, Germaine Greer, Grace Kelly, Marcel Marceau, Margaret Sanger)"