What happens when you push the limits of perception? Artist Joanna Austin explores this question in her latest installation, Icara, Icara, at St Albans Museum.

The piece resembles a black box theatre – an empty space or blank canvas that is determined by what you choose to put into it. Joanna uses only a towering mirror and two video projectors; the rest is what you make it.

“It’s a blacked out space, so it’s very difficult to see what’s going on,“ explains Joanna. “As you walk in, you immediately start to perform the piece instead of passively watching a film. You are actually part of work.“ Studying part-time, Joanna is working towards her Research MA at University of Hertfordshire on The Role of Disorientation in Video Installation, having completed her Fine Art degree at the university in 2009.

Joanna, 43, studied physics and worked in an investment bank before becoming an artist. She moved to Hertfordshire 15 years ago. She now works part-time in the university library while looking after her eight-year-old son, who is bringing his whole class from Cunningham Hill Junior School to see his mum’s show.

“He’s very interested in what I’m doing and his opinions are usually very good. He’s got a camera and likes to make videos and animations himself. He did the footage of model aeroplanes in flight for the installation.“

Taking inspiration from Greek mythology, Icara, Icara is a reworking of the Icarus myth from the point of view of a woman living in suburban England. While Icarus ignores his father’s instruction and falls to his death, in Icara, Icara, the stages of flight and fall represent the process of increasing self-awareness.

“The woman was learning to fly but didn’t know herself well enough, so she fell. Then she gets new wings and flies by moonlight and this time she knows herself better.

“The two projections reference her looking at herself and throw her disorientation back onto the audience. I wanted to instill a state of mind where the viewer is open to being imaginative. Where normal rules and regulations have gone so you’re forced into a realm of creativity.“

Joanna tells me the installation is a companion piece to an earlier work. In 2010 she did a residency at Luton Hoo Walled Garden and created a site responsive video installation called Dea et Luna, which was awarded the Overall Winners Prize at the UH Galleries Open Exhibition (her prize was to hold this solo show).

Other site specific works include Mirror, Mirror at Trestle Arts Base in 2008, Sites of Desire Phases 1-3, at council properties and Out of the Ashes at derelict agricultural buildings in St Albans.

“I do quite like an empty space to film in. There’s something about that emptiness, especially when you’re filming at night with torches. It theatricalises suburbia. When people are living on top of one another in close proximity, you have to behave in a certain way and there’s an element of me that doesn’t want to stick to rules and regulations.”

Icara, Icara is at the UH Galleries at the Museum of St Albans, Hatfield Road, St Albans from January 27 to March 11. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm, Sunday, 2pm-5pm. Details: 01727 819340