After a very long hiatus from social media I’ve just returned from three months of research lead practice in Europe. I’ve spent most of my time in the Netherlands undertaking an Artist in Residence Program at MIET AIR. And a research lead expedition with Sail Britain on the Western Isles of Scotland. This was made possible by The Lift Off Award I was granted in 2019 on completion of my MFA at the National Art School, Sydney. After almost three years patiently waiting for the Covid Pandemic to subside I finally arrived in Amsterdam on the 11th of July 2022.

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I had the incredible opportunity to meet and collaborate with some of the most talented individuals and groundbreaking organisations. The MIET studio facilitated my own experimentation with bronze casting techniques for casting recycled aluminium. While Sail Britain facilitated my research into micro plastic collection and utilisation.

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In the coming entries I hope to share with you my experience, research and the stories of those who’ve been integral the development of my practice. Acknowledging the generosity I've been afforded all of my research and methodology with be open source for anyone interested in adopting waste stream materials within their art practice.

 

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THEMATIC PREMISE

THIS BLEEDING HEART (WITH LOVE, FROM MARS)

 

    On an increasingly hostile planet, where chaos permeates the everyday I wonder how to combat my bleeding heart. As one concerned with loss and extinction I can only relinquish to the thought that this is nature—I am, my thoughts are, my smartphone is, just as plastic is too. Reconciliation comes from knowing my existence is but a fleeting moment on an infinite timeline. Does time cease to exist when I do? Of course we know that’s not true, it simply passes by—just as nature does—it never ceases. There is no doubt that plastic will become and perhaps already is a time stamp on earths geology, a slither of time buried beneath infinite ruins.

 

This project is based on the speculative narrative of life on mars. Mars presents itself as a not-so-distant reality, with colonisation of the red planet imminent one wonders what it might be like to live and make art in an alternative condition of existence.This brings me to speculate on how ‘nature’ exists across multiple cosmologies—as humans look to become a multi-planetary species how do we choose to depict nature in the future? And indeed we will be the curators—for terraforming Mars to make it habitable involves curation. And who decides but artists, for they are the visionaries—fashioning ecosystems in the image of themselves. Indeed life on Mars makes for fascinating hypotheticals however the reality is not dissimilar to our experiences of Earth now— isolating, fragmented, hostile and forbidding. So what images do we draw from? This project focuses on the symbiotic web of interdependencies that bind us to each other, to other species, and to the planet as a whole. Collecting textural impressions of human, plant and animal bodies this installation is a dreamlike hybrid of how we might depict future ecologies. The uncanny amalgamation of cellulite, scales and burls comes together as a sculptural form made of plastic waste. Plastic symbolises a truly contemporary ecosystem as it no longer sits outside of ‘natures’ definition but is wholly implicit in its description— its purpose; to dissolve the boundaries between bodies and objects bringing about mutations that remap subjectivities, hierarchies, and anatomies.

 

These impressions therefore must come from multiple perspectives and in collaboration. The nature of this work is fluid and traverses the practice of three artists; myself, Belle Blau and Tamsin Salehian. Like a conversation the sculpture passes through the hands of each artist undergoing a new metamorphosis with every contribution. 

 

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