Cementa15 - Residency

09 February 2014

Cementa15 Residency - Kandos: Part One (9 Feb – 17 Feb 2014)

THE SHOP RESIDENCY

I was in partial lockdown for a week in Kandos at the shop-residency. I spent my time reading writing, drawing thinking, overheating, swimming, walking, a couple of incidental as well as organised meetings with towns people and generally just being in Kandos as an disconnected outsider. As an outsider one is given the opportunity to observe and see the town from a distance. The anonymity affords one the privilege of isolation to contemplate and become absorbed in the landscape of internal thoughts.

I worked upon a series of quick sketches for possible future artworks. I installed 3 simple inter-related ideas in the shop windows. They explored how we may eavesdrop upon…

1. a conversation

2. lines in a book

3. the sub-conscious while asleep

THE SHOP WINDOWS

The sketches that resonated most engaged the windows as a membrane. This membrane between the inside and outside of the shop, acts as an acoustic diaphragm for listening to the muffled whispers—external sounds of the street or simply a place to ‘eavesdrop’ on the passing community. How do we decipher what is public and what is private?

In front of the residency shop window is a place for bumping into people and the sharing of words. The conversations slip in and out of local reference—speaking about the weather; how someone is feeling that day; about the how the kids are going at school; arrange a time to meet up in the future; about an elderly parent; complain about the weather…a place for simple promises of connectedness. This place or site directs and instigates the conversation between friends, neighbours, family, co-workers and the occasional stranger.

Outside the shop window is a place where communication is shaped by politeness, delight, coincidence, repetition – “echoing between local situation and the general shared spaces created amongst people and how they know one another.”(1)

shop windows

LINE OF SIGHT

On entering and leaving the township of Kandos one is greeted by the iconic dome or rotunda. It is not a whispering dome but a landmark place for public and social meeting. The dome structure and the shop residency windows are line of sight, offering an opportunity to transmit wireless communication between the two sites.

(1)B. LaBelle, “Misplace-Dropping Eaves on Ethics.” Hearing Places, ed. by R. Bandt, M. Duffy& D. MacKinnon. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009)

Cementa

line of sight

Dirt Blood Water - Residency

13 January 2014

ABOUT THE PROJECT - overview film

PUBLIC TALK Sydney Festival: 25 January 2014 Meet the Makers: Can Site Specific Work Tour? 12 noon, Saturday 25 January The Spiegeltent, Sydney Festival Village, Hyde Park, Sydney

Darling Harbour site visit

Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority invites you to a public forum at Sydney Festival with the artists and curators of a bold experiment. Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Urbane Künste Ruhr and Glasgow Life / Merchant City Festival have brought together international public artists Robyn Backen, Andre Dekker, Graham Eatough, Nigel Helyer and Jennifer Turpin, alongside urban planners, sociologists, archaeologists and engineers, to create a stunning and thought-provoking public artwork for the waterways of Sydney, Glasgow and Ruhr.

Brainstorming

Work environment

RESIDENCY: 13 - 23 January, Bundanon

On Monday 13 January, the Foreshore Authority hosted the Dirt Blood and Water Lab at the Bundanon retreat, in southern NSW, where I worked together with internationally-acclaimed public artists Andre Dekker - Rotterdam Netherlands, Graham Eatough - Glasgow Scotland, Nigel Helyer - Sydney, and Jennifer Turpin - Sydney, in a melding of creative minds.

Why Dirt Blood and Water?

We explored these three themes in the context of human connections to waterways, life at the edge of land, and the military echoes of The Great War in these urban habitats. We were joined by experts across a range of disciplines including urban planning, social geography, maritime archaeology and engineering.

During the ten day residency, the artists worked with curators: Michael Cohen - Sydney Foreshore Authority, Katja Aßmann - artistic director of Urbane Künste Ruhr, Germany and Lorenzo Mele - senior arts officer, Glasgow Merchant City Festival.

Camouflage Install

09 August 2013

Bricklayers John and Robbie

Assistance from Asha Forsyth

Camouflage Cultures

08 August 2013

Exhibition Opening: Thursday 8th August 2013 6:00pm Conference: 09 – 11 August 2013

Camouflage Cultures: Surveillance, Communities, Aesthetics, Animals, an international conference and exhibition co-convened an co-curated by Ann Elias and Nicholas Tsoutas.

The conference and exhibition address two key principles of camouflage - concealment and deception - in relation to four themes: surveillance, communities, aesthetics, and animals. The theme of ‘surveillance’ includes war, defence, militaries, and conflict; ‘communities’ embraces society, the everyday, government, and identity; ‘aesthetics’ incorporates art, architecture, film, and popular culture; ‘animals’ includes human and non-human beings, nature, evolution, pattern, and optics

Sydney University Website