Have visited 2 exhibitions in last few weeks – 

Harbourview sculpture trail 2014 & Pah Homestead.

Both places had a variety of works on display or in the case of Pah Homestead, there were several exhibitions in the one place to view.

Harbourview sculpture trail is situated on the Te Atatu peninsula on the Orangihina walkway (Auckland) and has 60 works as part of the trail. The works range from complete public involvement, in the making of the work or being able to touch the work, to work that was floating/standing in water and could only be viewed from a distance.

There were a few works that really made me think or left me in simple awe:

• A Fine Line by A.D.Schierning was one that made me think. The simplicity of the work first struck me. It was placed half in the public space and half into the ‘paid’ space.

I think many people simply walked past this work, as it was so unobtrusive in its placement.

It was a single row of poroporo (Solanum aviculare) plants planted in the ground, with bark around the stems. The plants were about 1.8m tall and single stemmed and supported by sturdy wooden stakes.

As a landscapers I know that the berries of these plants are poisonous and many people see them as weeds, nothing interesting to plant or have int he garden.

The way the plants were arranged, the title of the work and the fact that there is a fine line between living or dying when eating this fruit made this work interesting. Also the fact that many people walked past it, further re-iterating this fine line.

From the artist statement this is reinforced “ this work references the importance of our knowledge of plants and suggests a fragility and teetering temperament of life, a struggle for balance and the acceptance of a large grey area between black & white”. (pg 10 of catalogue)

• Whoa! By Jonathan Browman is a fun sculpture, one that makes you smile and remember moments where you to have had an umbrella turn inside out and the struggle you have to save it , as saving means you can stay dry against the elements.

The great questions at the end are great ones to consider with this work; What are we really afraid of? Getting wet? Being literally blown off our feet or carried away by the wind? (pg 15 of catalogue)

Maybe we are afraid of these, but it maybe we are more afraid of something simpler, messing up our hair or our clothes? Because that would bring judgement from others about us. This work has both a physical struggle we can identify with and an emotional one.

• In Unity We Put Our Trust by Simon Payton. This was a large work and where it was placed, you walked into the ‘prow’ of this piece. It was not a ship, but more like a cross.

This piece has ‘at its core the concept about the connecting of two races, Maori and Pakeha in Aotearoa’. (pg 19 of catalogue). It is a very powerful piece, because the 2 prows are joined, suggesting that unity, the crossing over of the cultures.

This work has strong personal resonance, as my household is a Maori/Dutch blend. We are crossing culture while at the same time creating a new one, one that works for us as a family living in Aotearoa.

This work also has a strong tactile element to it, as the timber used to create the work has been planed smooth. Creating this wonderful smooth surface over which your hands could glide with ease. Maybe once we work together more, this ease will be reflected in our unity.

• Wind Drift by Jeff Thomson, was a piece that initially looked very insignificant. This bent piece of metal floating in the water on a platform. After reading the catalogue, this piece became much bigger than it looked. Inspired by a piece of paper Thomson found on the site, being blown around.

He created his own piece of paper form aluminium, but added to the surface screen prints or text and images that had relevance to the area. This relevance was historical, topographical, geographical and environmental.

This ‘piece of blown paper’ now was like the discarded knowledge of this site, torn up, thrown away and left to blow around.

• Feed the Kids by Donna Turtle Sarten, a work created using 83,000 plastic teaspoons, using volunteers.

This work was along the main road, by the entrance to the sculpture walk. So without having to go in, by passers could be enjoying a work of art.

We came across this work, as we had biked from Henderson to the sculpture trail. From a distance the white spoons looked like flowers, mass planted. For me it reminded me of the many planted verges in Holland, with it’s neat rows.

The work certainly was impressive, and it had a very message attached to it. Which created a discussion amongst us about the issue of poverty and what was genuine poverty and what was ‘create’ by societies other hidden problems (drinking, gambling). How hard it would be to distinguish between the two.

This work certainly created the most discussion, beyond the art work, amongst us.

There were many other fantastic works that I have not spoken about and if you have not been to it, it is still on till the 30th March 2014.

Pah Homestead;

I went there to meet with an art friend, talk art, drink coffee and look at art works. Get  ideas for installation, display, presentation, construction and simple get the creative juices flowing.

The exhibition we spent the most time in was UNDRESSING THE PACIFIC by Shigeyuki Kihara. This was a series of photographic imagers and several moving image works.

Much of Kihara’s work has references to identity & status, where the ‘dress’ plays a central role in this.

The photographic imagery of her dressed in a long black early century dress, standing in the many devastated, by Cyclone Evan, landmarks of Samoa were the ones we spend most time with. In these works Kihara is standing in a similar position, with her back to the camera, observing the devastation. 

The conflict of knowing this devastation only happened  a few years back with Kihara dressed in early century clothing has a double meaning for me. Because it made me question that the devastation already happened when the Europeans first came to the pacific, not just with the recent cyclone. It did on some level’s, as habits and belief systems were adapted from this invasion. 

From the website it can be read that “the works in this show highlight the complex interplay of globalization, cultural identity and gender politics in contemporary postcolonial societies.” 

As a dutch immigrant, living in NZ (now for 33 years) I understand some of this complexity. It is not something I consciously deal with every day, but I am certainly aware that it plays a role in how I view things. Adding to this, I married a NZ Maori, so our kids are a mix of this, or ‘Much’ (Maori & Dutch makes Much) as I call them.

Complexity can become a never ending maze if there is no acceptance of the culture you have stepped into as the immigrant, and it also starts to play a role if you ignore your own you brought with you. The need to give is greater if you are the stranger, as the work from Simon Payton (at the Harbourview sculpture trail) tried to portray. 

This need for unity, to be able to move forward is just as important in my own household as it is in the broader Aotearoa, or the Pacific or anywhere else in this globally accessible world. 

How do we address this? Through art works like this and others, which make us question who we are, how we behave.

Finally the presentation aspect of these work really struck me, as the simple presentation of these images not framed nor behind glass, made the works very accessible. There was no physical barrier between us the viewer and the image. A method

There were many other exhibitions on at Pah Homestead that day, but we simply glanced over them, as by then the coffee had run out and it was closing.

I have recently had the joy of stumbling across Richard Mabey, an English nature writer. Once I found his writing I could not control myself and searched the library system for his other books. Consequently I now have 3 more besides the one I started, which is

Weeds – how vagabond plants gate crashed the way we think about nature (funnily renamed when I bought my version into Weeds – in defense of nature’s most unloved plants – personally prefer the first title), but have temporarily put this down to read;

A brush with Nature – 25 years of personal reflections on the natural world.

This book is a collection of the columns Mabey wrote for the BBC Wildlife magazine over that 25 years. These columns are filled with personal observational reflections and also covers many questions about the relationship between language, art & life. The book has been arranged into 7 chapters and within each chapter, the columns deal with a similar aspect or issue.

In the preface to the book Mabey discusses his desire he had for the column and how it changed to become more freeform. His desire was to cover this under lying theme “that the experience of the natural world is part and parcel of our ordinary lives, and that we sideline it as a mere hobby, or as the prerogative of specialist scientist, at our – and the planet’s – peril. These other beings of what has been called ‘the more than human world’ are our neighbours, and we need to understand how to get along with them.” (pg IX & X)

Reading through his many columns, I certainly feel that he is making us question this relationship time and time again.

I have picked a few columns out and want to share some things that have struck me;

Nature study – in here he talks about how he is getting re-acquainted with his microscope and his observation of how algae & fungus have a good symbiotic combination. They are apt in working out their neighbour relations. He goes on to write ‘the pursuit of neighbourliness requires the exact curiosity of science and the caringness of affection. That’s not a bad combination for approaching our fellow organisms” (pg 9 – Nature study)

This working together should be something that should be embraced with weeds, as after all they green up areas for us that we have destroyed and often left as forgotten parcels of land, they thrive on those in between spaces we have neither got the time, money or inclination for to do something with. Through their action they help us breathe, and also provide alternative hosts for animal pest, alternative food sources for ourselves

Mabey’s writing is poetic, his ability to describe how he moves through a fen (here we would refer to it as a wetland) made me rethink how I move through nature – “You are not just in a habitat, you are part of a living membrane, pulsing with life, its scents and vibrations linked with your own. You leave your mark, too, churning the mud, ferrying the seeds, briefly opening the canopy. The wet, for all its underlying layers of ancestral peat, is about here, now, living in the moment, taking your chances”. (pg 13 – Second Home)

Every piece of land has many layers, many ancestors who have influenced it. Whom have altered it, added, removed or enriched it in some way. Adding to that nature has its cycle, one that we disrupt at times to suit ourselves, but once we forget about a piece, this cycle simply starts again. The initial colonizer’s, often weeds, take hold, find a spot, a space that is just perfect for their needs. They green it and if left long enough prepare it for the next ‘layer’ of plants to sprout and take root.

In his another column Mabey goes on to remind his readers that just like us plants “aren’t just species, members of an abstract class. They have addresses as well as names, spots where we’ve found them, befriended them, shared a moment and a place in our lives.” (pg 15 New Nieghbours).

For a gardener, every plant in their garden has this link, the knowledge of where they purchased, found or were given it, they are the layers of ancestors or whakapapa of that plant. Adding to this the plants own position within its family, with all its links and similarities.

After the  long dry summer we have just experienced, many of the ‘addresses’ in the garden have been vacated, mostly through death. Often many of these ‘addresses’ will be refilled with the same plant, because in a garden the features of that plant was part of that space and the overall look.

The in-between spaces, where the weeds find refuge and their addresses, a similar fate may have happened, but there is no guarantee that the space will be filled with the same plant. Nature is not concerned with the overall look. Plants in nature are simply concerned with survival.

Many times we will look at such spaces without even consciously being aware of what we are looking at. The moment this awareness changes, we share a moment, whether this is one of distaste or otherwise is immaterial to these plants, as they remain a species, a member of a family (one we have decided they belong to!!).

Our relationship with plants is really one of control. In fields we plant one species so we can feed many, in a garden we select plants for their looks and behaviour, while many ‘nature reserves’ are ‘managed’ to ensure survival of certain species. We manipulate and arrange plants to often suit our needs, I am guilty of this same behaviour in my own garden (maybe that is why I like the in-between spaces so much, they are wild & suit themselves).

According to Mabey we need to loosen up, as “gardening is not necessarily about fussy meddling and regimentation. It can be romantic, playful, intimate, wild, an equal dialogue with mature, and maybe the best model of all for the relationship we should aspire to”. (pg 24 & 25 – House and Garden)

Mabey came to this conclusion after observing insects in his own garden & house. Am not sure that I would be happy to share my house with crickets, black ants, weevils and many other insects that he had been observing walking, flying through and generally occupying his house with him. But I can agree with his sentiment about our need to be less meddling.

We already do this for periods of time with the in-between spaces. Really only because we have no idea what to do with them.

But this less meddling approach allows for plants to find their natural address, their seeds play in the wind or attach themselves to our socks, not knowing their final destination. A playful approach to finding a new home. Can we learn from this?

Mabey writes that we can – “It often seems to me that we are closer to nature when we’re playing than at any other juncture of our lives. Of course, our needs for food, sex and territory are absolutely animal-based. And because play is so intricately linked with art, it can somehow seem unearthly, as abstract as higher maths. Yet I’ve a hunch that it, and a philosophy based around it, may be our ‘way back’. (pg 19 – Play Times)

He continues with “I doubt that even the most ardent behaviourists can believe any longer that animal play is simply utilitarian rehearsal for more functional business. Sometimes it looks more like the point of life”. (pg 20 – Play Times)

Without play, without that spontaneous approach play affords you, life becomes boring, predicted. Mabey makes me realize that this same freedom is needed as I start new work. The time to question, but also the time to have happy accidents take place, from these inspiration develops, grows and potentially buds up to bloom.

Book:

Mabey, Richard (2010) A brush with Nature – 25 years of personal reflections on the natural world. Great Britain. BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publsing, A Random House Group Company

While researching to find info that related to the wild radish plant, I came across this cool music video on you tube:

The wild radish song 

The back ground info on this is:

“A parody of the Gotye hit “Somebody I used to know” by agronomic consultant Bill Long, who farms on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia as well as consults to a number of farmers in the region. This is a farmer’s lament on attempts to control wild radish resulting in the loss of chemical options to the point where only radical options are available. Truly reflects the consequences of farming systems becoming reliant on herbicides for weed control.”

I know it is very rampant, I collect my specimens from the road side. It seeds prolifically, just like any other ‘weed’ it is making the most of the in-between space outside. Those spaces we do not need, use or know what to do with.

Gallery visit last week to Bath Street Gallery in Parnell.

It had a show on with works about collecting and liquid light photography that piqued my interest. The show’s title was Multiplicity and was by four recent Ilam graduates.

The collection works by Alison Staniland was created through her own form off ordering & categorising. After collecting and cutting out multiple colourful images from books/magazines, of anything organic or natural. 

These images are then grouped according to colours and arrangements made into circles or hexagonal’s.

Using entomological pins the images are pinned just like a scientific method used for butterflies or bugs. The pins were all placed in the centre of the image, which in some cases worked well with the image. I do wonder that using this method it may have been better to consider an off centre placement of the pin for some of the images or even use of more than 1 pin.

Light Hexagon, 2014 entomology pins, resin pins, resin and magazine cutouts. 40 x 35 cm

The intrigue for me was the collecting aspect and then the personal criteria of categorising. There were aspects of these works that really resonated with me, such as the careful colour selection of each image and how the images were puzzled together to create the over all shapes.

Upon personally experiencing the works I was left wondering about the deeper meaning. These works definitely had collector written all over them, with a scientific bend and approach. They also had a bit of Wunderkammer and early collector fascination to them, as in the early period of collecting, all matter of items were displayed together. No ‘real’ scientific ordering was present in those early days of the Cabinets of Curiosities.

The series of works using the liquid light by Bianca van Leeuwen thew up some interesting questions for me. As there were 4 groups displayed, of which 2 were a diptych, then 2 larger works of a grid using many.

Each individual work was done on a rectangular shaped piece of glass that had a curved top and bottom and the sides had a bevelled edge. Some of the works had a smoky look to them.

 

Banks peninsula

It was after speaking to the curator that this smoky appearance became clear.  (the glass pieces were from a found lamp shade)

This smoky look made the works have an old classic feel about them, which was in stark contrast to the hanging system used to display them (the hanging brackets were unfortunately a distraction for me, they felt like a row of braces)

The biggest challenge, for me the viewer, was to try and visually isolate one image from the mass, while trying to find links between each, considering they were hung together in a large grid formation.

Researching her work I came across this image from this web page:http://eyecontactsite.com/2011/05/ilam-masters-show

Conscripted reflections: Collective bearings. 2011 Found Objects, SEI Emulsion, steel and oil.

and have been left wondering if this original display method suited the work better. It not only placed the glass sheets back into their original format, but it also would have allowed for the viewer to see one image at a time. While still creating a link between the images through the mere fact that they were tied together in a circular pattern.

These works did feel like a journey, a nostalgic journey through the country side, as few images contained buildings. All had hills, open spaces and some man made elements in them like power poles or roads.

The 2 diptych works on the other hand felt easy to visually access & process. The images related to each other and the hanging system did not over power the delicate images.

One of the reasons for me to see this show was to see how glass photographic works can be displayed and how a collection of images can be arranged. Visiting this show was worth while to gather some display/arrangement ideas for my own practice.

Vital aspects I gleaned from this are; the display methods used, shadow patterns through the glass, number of works to hang together, placement of pins and is a traditional framing system the best way?

(Note to the readers of this entry: I by no means am an art critic and this blog is more a reflective blog for my study and my practice.)

 

 

Fascinating Art Inspired by the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’

As an artist who is very influenced by plants I am also very keen to ensure our environment is kept clean not just for the future but also for the present. This means that not just weeds that threaten our native environment need to be controlled, but also the rubbish that people throw out of their car needs to be picked up. It is always a surprise that this practice happens constantly.

I walk my dog along the same country road each day and ones a week I take a plastic shopping bag with me to pick up all the rubbish. Each week I am surprised that I fill a bag again and each week I add it to my rubbish bin.

While doing some research for my art practice this morning I came across this website:

Realizing that I should not have thrown this junk away, but keep it, clean  it, collate it and create art works with it. What an inspirational & inventive way to up-cycle rubbish.

The usual artist had work in this show, mark Dion, who is a master of collections & display has a work in this show ‘Cabinet of marine Debris’. It is a masterful ordered display of plastic bottles and buoys found. It is a display that should make you question many things in your life.

I am now rethinking how I can store more stuff without becoming an obsessive compulsive.

Continuing on with my reading about weeds and what they are or how they can be described, is proving to be both interesting from my perspective, but also how people react when they see you reading a book on ‘weeds’.

The basic description of what a weed is has many different view points;

According to the Oxford online dictionary:

A weed is “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants”.

This statement leaves a lot of room for interpretation, as stating that a weed is a plant growing where it is not wanted, means that even innocent ‘garden plants’ left to seed will pop up in places you may not have wanted to plant them. So does this make them a weed? It certainly makes them an opportunist, one that broke the code of acceptable behaviour according to the desires of the gardeners.

or a weed is;

Thompson suggests that “a plant that grows, especially profusely, where it is not wanted” (pg 10 Thompson)

This is a much tighter statement, than the one from the Online Oxford dictionary, leaving less room for ambiguity. Here even a garden plant left to seed and popping up in places the gardener did not want becomes something undesirable, an escapee beyond its allocated borders.

or a weed is;

“Weeds are only weeds from our egotistical human point of view”, (Pfeiffer pg 11) even though they grow in places we have forgotten or is surplus to our requirements.

The more I read about these plants, to more it is clear that these chancers & opportunist are really plants that follow in our foot steps.

Many of these plants do not survive in the true wild parts. They take root where we have been or walked the earth and disturbed the soil. They follow in our footsteps, so what they really represent is our failures to utilize all those spaces we have taken from the wild to make our own. They exploit those moments where humans have temporarily lost interest in a space.

Real weeds are not shy, nor harmless. Weeds have an inherent take over tactic in-built in their survival. They spread fast, either above or below ground.

Above ground they produce lots of seeds from many flowers. This proliferation is certainly a key to their survival and spread. Then their ability to germinate in places that appears to have no valuable soil in it, is what makes them so successful. This is possibly what creates our dislike for them, as we often can not grow anything in those places, creating this hatred for something that can do it without needing us.

As Richard Mabey states so well “none of these outlawed species have changed their identities in graduating as weeds, just their addresses” (pg 5, Mabey).

Weeds are happy to shift and move along behind us, they are not fussy of the address and could not care whether they are on the main road or a quiet cul-de-sac.

Or a weed is;

“A plant whose virtues have never been discovered’ according to Ralph Waldo Emerson (an American poet of the mid 19th century)

Many plants that are weeds in today’s society were at some stage used and valuable, but as time has gone on, we have forgotten those virtues. Simply because the need to forage for food (in most parts of the world) is reduced – Our food is now mostly obtained in packets and our medicine prescribed by a doctor. The virtues of these plants have simply gone out of fashion or through their spread have slipped into the wrong culture.

To sum it up I have to go back to Mabey as he describes it very well;

“The weed community shouldn’t be judged by the behaviour of its most aggressive members. Weeds – even many intrusive aliens – give something back.They green over the dereliction we have created. They move in to replace more sensitive plants that we have endangered. Their willingness to grow in the most hostile environments – a bombed city, a crack in a wall – means they insinuate the idea of wild nature into places otherwise quite shorn of it. They are in a sense, paradoxical. Although they follow and are dependent on human activities, their cussedness and refusal to play by our rules makes them subversive, and the very essence of wildness” (pg 20, Mabey)

Weeds green bits that are broken & ignored by us. Provide alternative food sources for animals & people (if we needed to again) and “What we ignore, more perilously, is the fact that many of these weeds maybe holding the bruised parts of the planet from falling apart” (pg 20 &21. Mabey).

A weed is something we may not want or like, but one that is forever in our shadow no matter how hard we try to ignore them.

 

‘they follow in our footsteps’ Elle Anderson (berberis & hawthorn berries)

 

Books from which these were taken:

Thompson, Ken. ( 2009) The book of weeds – how to deal with plants that behave badly. London, Great Brittain. Dorling Kindersley Ltd.

Pfeiffer, Ehrenfried. (2012) Weeds & What they tell us. Edinburgh. Floris Books

Edmonds, William (2013) weeds weeding (& Darwin) The gardener’s guide. London, Great Brittain. Francis Lincoln Ltd.

Mabey, Richard.(2010) Weeds – In defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants. London, Great Britain. Profile Books Ltd.

 

webpages:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/ralph_waldo_emerson_2.html