OBJECTS
'Untitled,' curved concrete slab; half a brick. Description: filming contraption, Orewa Estuary.
'Untitled,' found Plastic zip-lock bag. Description: filming contraption, Wenderholm regional park.
‘Untitled,' white redundant table lamp; pink fish mould; nerf gun bullet. Description: filming contraption, Orewa beach.
‘Untitled,' brick; Kellogg’s cocopops muesli bar wrapper; The Original Rich & Creamy Minees sandwich cookies wrapper; size 37/38 Havaianas flipflop; Canadian Club Dry 250 ml can. Description: filming contraption, Manly Beach.
‘Untitled,’ broken Auckland Council caution sign for dotterels; short piece of wood. Description: filming contraption: Shakespear Regional Park.
VIDEOS
Projection 1:
First video - ‘Untitled,’ [3:55]. Location: Close to the tidal swamp near Puhoi River, Wenderholm regional park.
Second video - ‘Untitled,’ [3:14]. Location: Along the carpark, beach and the dunes in between, Shakespear Regional Park. Projection 2:
First video - ‘Untitled,’ [3:43]. Location: Beside a large sewer creek, Manly Beach. Second video - ‘Untitled,’ [2:26]. Between mangroves and cycleway, Orewa Estuary.
TV:
‘Untitled,’ [10:45]. Location: Orewa beach, near cliffs and the overhead highway [one video only].
This installation enquires into spaces where overlooked specimens of the ‘wild’ formulate; an impression of ‘otherness’ from the accepted ‘nature’ that is liberally and repeatedly recounted through routine depictions eg. nature programmes. As components of 'the wild’ that is to exist seclusively aside of culture, discarded found-objects are introduced to prospect, through their perspectives, the locale which they are cumulated from. An iPhone is attached to the objects that are reutilised as unconventional filming devices, becoming dragged, pushed, pulled or carried around the location, resulting in videos that experiment with the idea of an ‘insider view’ of the ‘resident object’ of the particular spaces. Following this procedure, a written ‘list’ is formulated by the artist, documenting the bygone performance: an archival process repeated throughout the extent of the project, reflecting the idea of the works transitioning into gallery artefacts.
Regional seaside locations from the artist’s childhood are the explored through the performances, evoking a sense of memory and nostalgia. Furthermore, they highlight the notion of an in-between space, situated evidently between land and sea. Such marginal spaces often remain perceived as subservient or abandoned through the dominance of the binaries that confine them. In attempts to re-locate these spaces, these binaries appear defiant of their positions through the novel and spontaneous perspectives of objects. Land and sea, public and private, celebrated and forgotten spaces become merged to the point where they operate as unidentifiable, complex, systemic entities, opposed to categorisation.
The implicit post-apocalyptic atmosphere of such marginal spaces signifies a possibility of reconsideration and regeneration. Questioning the social construct of typical, accepted genres of ‘wildernesses,’ the ‘liminal space’ becomes reinvestigated as the works shift context from the outdoors into the gallery. Creating relationships between the building’s interior and exterior, viewers and the objects, notions of culture and unorthodoxy, these objects from ‘wastelands,’ or ‘the wilds,’ pose ideas of how a reconstructed perspective might affect ostracised spaces within society. Through this instance, the work prospects a view into the ‘other’ milieu, inviting the notion to destabilise established methods of perceiving such spaces, and engaging in an alternative methodology of how else they might become encountered.
17/06/2020
Updated research proposal:
Engaging with moving image, performance, and found objects/sculptures, I am interested in ideas around in-between areas that form in the outskirts of a region: my current project in particular explores the spaces connecting land and sea, areas that convey this idea of a transitional space operating within two separated entities. Through the utilisation of found objects to prospect this example of ‘wilderness,’ traditional methods of viewing ‘nature’ become subverted through an altered perspective of the object. Each journey from my home to the selected location reflects the notions around travel, location, space, time, and memory, becoming an integral process that renders the work an unpacking of underlying components that make up the more conventional meanings of such ideas.
My project has become influenced through the examples of NZ- Balinese artist Sriwhana Spong, who deals with ideas of marginal spaces and binaries within her works; Francis Alys’s durational performative works that convey ideas of absurdity within public intervention; and NZ / South- Indian curator Balamohan Shingade’s research on the topics of ‘double-consciousness,’ and internal conflict through the notion of a ‘dominant other.’
Looking further, I would like to make enquires into the idea of 'liminal spaces,’ in relation to locations within the surrounding landscapes. I aim to direct my focus towards the convergence of ‘nature / the wild’ and human-made objects, machines or technologies, and hope to expand my explorations through engaging in alternative methodologies to perceive or encounter the ‘liminal space.’