Reflection - Spring Seminar
I was present for three days of the seminar. My head space has not particularly been good as a result of circumstances and a multitude of upsetting events that have seemingly been rolling in one after another. I have felt I have been unable to give my all to my practice and this programme. That’s really upsetting for me and hasn’t helped with depression. I was unsure whether to even continue. However, after discussions with my supervisors and time to reflect on options, I decided to persevere and get some extra help and support and create a routine that will help lifting my mental health.
I installed my work on Thursday morning and had a group critique that same day. The bodies of water were placed on the floor in my allocated space in a casual arrangement that beings might stand or sit in a space. I did not present a contextual statement as I wanted the group to give a blind critique. Words came up like skin, a colony, Kina, and form. There was a suggestion of the work carrying on up a wall in some way or perhaps having different sized vessels. The critique Later it was mentioned by my supervisor about them being made around round vases. This doesn’t worry me as it’s a form that I needed, and a vase is a vessel which sustains cut flowers or foliage until they die. Our bodies as vessels are much the same, we are on our way to dying as soon as we are born and our bodies sustain us until that time. Any second hand glass vessel I used would have had some meaning for some other reason. Every component was thought through, researched and had some significance (yes through my logic processes). It was artworks and an installation which was purely mine and it was an idea I needed to realise. It followed on from my work The Wrack Line in being vessels utilising bioplastic, containing something however these this work is more structured forms than those in The Wrack Line. I wonder if I can find a happy medium rather than ebb and flow between one or the other.
In the key ideas talk Glen spoke about form and formlessness and how my work seems to push and pull between the two. He made a comment about water being both. I thought about this and my state of mind currently and how I very well may have unconsciously moved toward this as it is more controlled in form and a need to work within something I feel I have more agency over (as I dont have much over anything else). I need form and structure when my world seems chaotic, and maybe when I feel Im in smoother life patterns, I am a little (a little) more comfortable with risk. Other things that came up in the key ideas talk was water, future thinking, form and formlessness, time (flowing through time), stories about space and time and whether the was any inspiration to be gained from that. There was also a question raised about whether agar was really sustainable. Artists that were suggested to look at were Neri Oxman, Marguerite Humeau and Anicka Yi. I enjoyed both the critique and the key ideas discussions and have a few things to research. I think the theory is quite fascinating for some people so it seems to promote lots of discussion or interest.
Was good to get out to see a few galleries in Auckland too (Coastal Signs, Gow Langsford and Sumer). Will make another post about gallery visits over the semester. I always enjoy being with the other students and looking at their work. It was really interesting to see how works had developed since July.
Time to put some ideas together for November now that I have this work out my system!
Bodies of Water
Algae Based-Bioplastic skins, glass, water
Hydrophilic skins, that absorb and diffuse water, are grafted onto glass vessels which are 80% full with water, and the broken pieces of numerous glass vessels (representational of other bodies water has previously been flowed through). Algae and oxygen, those core things responsible for life.
Through being in the room with these works our respiratory water loss becomes part of the atmosphere, their hydrophilic skins absorb the molecules that have passed through us. We breath what water evaporates from them. A connectivity through sharing water. Connectivity through water that can be traced; age, origins and migration through deuterium isotopes in water.
Ephemeral artworks that are ancient through primordial water, and immortal as what’s been contained and passed through will circulate forever more through bodies of water and hydrologic cycles.
