Does this place matter?, is an investigation into materiality as a way to understand place. The objective is to generate location-specific responses, or context-responsive projects that are infused with the phycological, ecological, social and political significance of a place.
The practice centres around the action of ‘digging’ and the ideas evolve from and around ‘new materialism’. I dig about unearthing matter, written, imagined, seen, heard, smelled and felt matter. It is an experiential, diffractive, engaged, creative and rhizomic practice.
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Sunday’s Avatar
In response to an invitation for public art for a ‘healing garden’ I proposed an installation that will heal the garden. I model 20 cats from local clay mixed with seed for a temporary installation. Transformed by the weather it will nourish the soil, create sustenance and protection for nonhuman visitors. This artwork references the cat as Sunday Reed’s avatar, as companion, as destroyer and as a symbol of mystical healing power.
Books in the Library at Heidi 1
The Heide Museum of Modern Art, is an art museum in Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1981, the museum houses modern and contemporary art across three distinct exhibition buildings and is set within sixteen acres of heritage-listed gardens and a sculpture park.
Using the earth and seed from the site I make a seed matrix with which to create a form to signify a narrative. The seed matrix artworks are time-based, site specific and site determined sculptural responses. They draw clues from the land and histories of place. They are a way to tell stories of a place, political, social, environmental.
I use the term seed matrix rather than seed bomb as it to refers to the social or political environment in which something develops.
For some of the Cat Seed Matrix’s I collected seed from the land art work by Lauren Berkowitz, Karakarook’s garden. In this work Lauren sourced endemic grasses with assistance from local Elders.
For this project I made 20 seed matrix’s using clay and soil from the site. They took the symbolic form of an Egyptian bronze cat and were impregnated with seed (in this case coriander and mustard) and placed throughout walled garden at Heide 1. (Apparently Sunday had 20 cats on the property at one time).
As they dissolved they improved the soil quality, nurture ecosystem growth, ultimately creating habitat and food for birds and insects. This artwork attempts heal the garden. It follows a tradition of environmental art interventions at Heide.
Sunday’s AvatarDetail (3/20) clay, soils, coriander seed 20cmHx 6cmW
photo Ceri Hann
Elster Creek Drain is one of the major drainage systems that drains metropolitan Melbourne. It drains a total of approximately 40sq. km in the southern municipalities of St. Kilda, Brighton, Moorabbin and Caulfield. Established in 1871 to facilitate urban land usage and diverted and upgraded thirty years later when a polluted Ellwood swamp was reclaimed, domesticated and cultivated. This hypothetical project seeks to de-urbanise, claim and re-wild a the section of this drainage system between the streets of Cochrane and New in the City of Bayside as a matter of survival.
I was alarmed to discover that, in a catastrophe and as a matter of survival, I had no direct control over my access to drinking water, unless I harvested my own. It made me think about ways to harvest water in my own neighbourhood, a lot of water rushes past, diverted by roads, curbs, drains to flow away….underground unseen through drains, collecting pollutants and rubbish. I started to think how I could harvest the water via the urban drain ….The questions started flooding in……
Photo: Elster Creek drain cover
This project seeks to harness the collective agency of the ecosystem that inhabits and surrounds the site to de-urbanise the creek, provide a natural system for flood mitigation, create habitat and offer access to fresh water. It is envisioned as a collaboration with traditional custodians of the land, artists, scientists, hydrologists, botanists, managing authorities, local school children, residents, and local action groups.
Grow me is an artwork that is painted in clay slip, the imagery is of the seed pod of a local banksia species. The intention of the art work is that it washes away into the cracks and crevices of the paving, building up the soil for vegetation, to habitat in order to purify the water. The layout mimics wall paper or carpet offering a reference to domestic interiors as a contrast to the prohibited zone of the urbanised creek bed. The project seeks to de-urbanise the creek bed. The text in the work is posed as questions about water and water purity.
‘Clay Conversations’ are a way of connecting to self and others, a form of language provoked by affective response to conversing with clay in ones hands and, by assumption, making things.
These time-based and site specific responses trigger affective processes, memory, emotion and imagination. In this area of practice I draw on reflexology, yoga, meditation, the writings and teachings of Paulus Berensohn and my love of making of pinch pots. ‘Clay Conversations’ are presented in a number of contexts from wellbeing centres, community events and festivals, to clay yoga and meditation workshops.
This group of clay objects were formed during a Kerramic Studio Soirée. Staff and Board of the Mundaring Arts Centre were invited to the studio to play with clay. It was a way of connecting with each other, getting to know the team.
This is a group of clay forms made during my presentation about the Semiotics of Clay in Building 50 RMIT. Colleges were invited to make something for the table top while listening to the presentation. After the 10 minute presentation they were invited to place their clay on the table which was covered in a clay impregnated crochet table cloth. A conversation with clay rather than with humans.
Artist in Residence at the Peter Mac Wellbeing Centre. October 17, 22, 29.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is one of the world’s leading cancer research, education and treatment centres globally and is Australia’s only public hospital solely dedicated to caring for people affected by cancer. With over 2,500 staff, including more than 580 laboratory and clinical researchers, focused on providing better treatments, better care and potential cures for cancer.
‘Waiting, waiting, waiting so much waiting.’ ‘Much better than stress balls!’ ‘stress builds in the body as cancer and you don’t notice.’ ‘ you have to believe you will get through it’.
The clay’s work is done……. we set it in the garden to return the earth .
‘The cycle of life’,
During my first session of clay meditation at the Peter Mac I met Fleur (not her real name), who had come in specially to participate and the first time she had touched clay. Our conversation was a rich mixture of life with cancer, family and even sharing of recipes. Others joined us including the Immunologist from the lab upstairs.
The clay rests cradled in her hands as she talks.
She held my pot for a long time … and beamed…. I just love holding it.
She came specially, she had no appointments that day. It was the first time she had touched clay. She used to make fine pastry koftas with her mother.
She was so positive and provided the catalyst for the conversations about cancer. She said she liked how I was so calm. She came back. She said she had trouble finishing things but each thing she did was beautifully finished.
I learn so much. We should go on tour together. Deep gratitude.
Quiet contemplation, mostly patients join while they relax with the clay they begin to talk with each other about their cancer, carers and medical staff join in and provide information and other stories. Conversation drifts to family, and provoked by the clay to recipes and traditions. Today we talked about burning sage (Turkish), olive leaf (Cyprian), or rosemary (Italian) as cleanser provoked by curled shaped object left by a participant earlier in the session.
Reflexology - pressure points.
The material composition of the termite mound is a record of a connection to a specific place and time. ‘Termitaries’ mimics the role of termites in the creation of soil matrix, it’s an investigation into the matter of place.
This work is inspired by a recent experience of termite mounds in Queensland and a curiosity about what these ‘clay’ biostructures could reveal about connection, time and place.
I attempt to mimic the role of termites in the creation of soil matrix or social sculpture, it’s an investigation into the matter of place, and provides a way to understand the blurring of the human/non-human binary (as explored and articulated by New Materialist thinkers).
I mix a range of materials with local soil and clay and make 20, hollow 10 cm high biostructures. Some forms I coat with honey, oil or flour to mimic patina.
I want to see what happens to these forms over time.
The materials I use are sourced within 5km of my home, plastics washed up amongst the shells on the shore of Elwood Beach, food that has travelled distances to arrive in my 5 km radius.
Some species of termite mix faeces to the soil or bio matter, others saliva, there appears is no waste.
Small fine multi-coloured plastic remnants danced in the sand, so happy to land after many days swooshing in the stormy turbulent sea but not yet diminished. Transported but not transformed resilient, persistent, permanent……
The material, place and time of each mound - soil matrix - is recorded on a typed and hand written label to emulate a geological fieldwork record. The beginnings of a material passport, a passport of matter. A way of tracking and tracing matter. An archival record.
Twelve material mounds were placed in circles of corresponding material, miniature plastic figures were placed – in conversation.
Black Cia seed from Bulgaria - How many miles does our food travel to reach us?
Termitaries uses the language of clay as a way to investigate the nature of termites, Blattaria: Isoptera - a type of cockroach, the way they reveal and distribute water, minerals, and bio-matter in the creation of bio-structures and their impact on the ecosystem. They are soil ecosystem engineers and the role of termites on ecosystem function has been motivating scientists for a long time.
Termitaries draws upon ideas of transience as explored by artists Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long.
Development of display ideas and playing with words; term, termite, teritarium, termitaries, terminate, terminal.
The dioramas were displayed the window boxes at Building 50, RMIT for 20 days. The site was selected because it referenced display of scientific research or collections in museums. The object displayed is temporary.
I am wondering about taking Temitaries out on my walk. Placing them on the tar seams that fill the cracks in the path, at the points where the soil has finally broken through and little green shoots appear.
I am wondering about clay houses and biostructures as homes.
I am wondering about how we could make better use of our faeces and the notion of waste.
WaterTable to TableTop
This project is inspired by the huge volume clay being removed from the construction site across the road in suburban Melbourne. It is a project about memory and material. Using the clay from the site I am making objects that I plan to return to the site. Its a hypothetical artist in residence project.
I recall the work of potter Kate Hill, Digging, 2015 that considers a temporal engagement with materials and place and a journey with hand dug clay from excavation to a final firing. Objects that developed from Kate’s project drew on the cultural history of Eltham (an area of progressive architecture and art).
What will the semiotics of clay reveal about site #10?
Similarly I plan to use a gallery as a site to talk about another site. I will be artist in resident at the gallery and explore the gallery as a site for making things, for cross-disciplinary knowledge exchange and for the sharing of outcomes of my methodology as artist residency on the construction site.
I plan to activate the gallery space with impromptu, random and orchestrated conversations about site #10. Guests will include neighbours, artists, urban planners, construction workers, designers, geologists and engineers. Whilst we talk, and listen, we will make things. The things created, using clay from the site, will, for a time, inhabit the gallery space, and some may find their way back to the site.
I’m interested in the affect of a ‘Clay Conversation’ about the site, using the clay from the site. What will it reveal about the semiotics of clay- connection, place and time.
Site #10 is about 800 sm2 in size. A substantial double story masonry residential building was demolished in September 2019. The site rests.
Water Table to Table Top’ is fuelled by my anxiety about land development (transformation), the agency of the dollar over decision-making and ecological design. During my ‘residency’ on site I explore and document issues of agency, site politics and ecological sensibilities. I preserve a material memory of the site. The trucks start to arrive, leave, arrive, leave arrive, leave, arrive, leave……… music of the street.
In this project I explore an ‘artist in residence’ approach as a methodology for analysing the site. Collecting information and matter and building a connection with the site and others that inhabit the site, to recover old stories, generate new stories, memories and site specific responses.
So far I have inserted myself into the site, chatting with construction workers, the site manager, the design team and neighbours.
The process is revealing the politics of the site. Raising questions of access and power. I am drawn to the writings about Land-Use by feminist and activist Lucy R. Lippard. Lippard, Lucy, R. (2014) Undermining,a wild ride through land use, politics, and art in the changing West. NewYork: The new press.
I visit the site nearly every day. I keep a diary where I imagine the possibilities and perceived constraints of ‘the hypothetical artist in residence’.
They scrape away the first couple of metres of earth, drill 6m holes around the sites boarder and inject the land with steel and concrete.
First level underground… now for more concrete to hold back the walls.
The earth here has more body.
As the earth is excavated, by huge machinery (not termites), to depth of 8m below the street level - I have collected samples. I am exploring the material, sifting it, refining it to a matter from which a thing can develop. The thing might be a plate, bowl cup, tile, figurine……. Once I find a suitable clay body I hope to make works on the site.
October 16 Looks like I’ve got a body to mould! I will give some to the Danish girl who shields the trucks as they arrive and leave, arrive and leave, arrive and leave ….. day after day. Looks like it might be nearly time for her to move to another site. I wonder how she would feel about making a thing for water table to table top.
I feel out of place on site, frail, vulnerable. construction sites are men’s business…… saturated. I visit early in the morning before the site gets busy and days when the trucks don’t visit.Some of the conversations that have happened on site in the process of accessing the soil will be inserted to create a sense of how conversation is playing a role in my access to materials……..so far they have been restrained and very short. A chat rather than a conversation.
with site manager “Hi Nic, how you are you how is it all going? Is it ok if I collect some more clay?” … “sure” (Nic is always on his phone). Excavator driver, “the best clay we found was in ‘Ringwood’’ “ the further we go the more like rock it gets” “Rock hard” …….a chap delivering strapping for the concrete ‘My wife is an artist too"‘ and earth moving contractor - … “this is a quick job, we like to get in and out real quick!’”
Bernard to Nic “Thats my wife down there is it ok if I go and help her carry out the clay?”… “yeah sure”.
This sample from the bottom of the pit 8-9metres deep is made of very fine silica. It will be used to make a glaze.
October 17, 8 meters deep.
As this project evolves, I’m drawn to the ideas of ecofeminism as postulated by Francoise d’Eaubonne’ book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974), as a way to understand the politics of this ‘masculine’ site and as I conjure the memory of ‘mother’ earth as over 40,000 cubic metres of earth excavation by massive machinery and transported away.
Site #1175 Home is a private space made public by our collective response to the COVID 19 pandemic, my home in Glen Forrest Western Australia
On the 20 March I moved back home to Glen Forrest in Western Australia, arriving one and a half hours ahead of the curfew hour for mandatory fourteen day isolation, due to possible COVID-19 infection. A few days later the WA boarders close and movement between regions is restricted. We are told to Stay at Home.
I arrive with a well formed understanding of this place, or so I assumed, having lived here and cared for it on and off for over 25 years. I am compelled to confront the familiar to find that which is new and unfamiliar, that which is different. What sort of place is this and what does me being in this place mean? What does it mean to “dwell authentically” (using Heidegger’s term)? Is dwelling, nesting, being at home a fundamental aspect of human existence? From a phenomenological perspective being human is dwelling. Being at home is different to staying at home.
By April social distancing is enforced. Gatherings of more than two people have been outlawed. Venues and places where crowds gather are shut down. We are in lock down. The economic, social and cultural fabric of our lives has been dislocated. Hugs are cherished. My ‘iso’ partner and I dig dirt and hug at the corner boundaries of Home.
Site #1175 – Home, at 31051’43.7”S 116006’ 54.0”E is a fenced 2756 m2 piece of land. The site is intersected east west by a seasonal creek, Nyaania Creek, that starts 2.6kms to the east and meets the Helena River approximately 7 kms to the west. North is the Railway Reserve Heritage Trail, to the south is nature reserve that stretches 10 kilometres through bushland to the Mundaring Weir.
