In Conversation | Danielle Hobbs

Today we have the pleasure of presenting our latest 'In Conversation' between curator Kristian Haggblom and closing artist Danielle Hobbs. The exhibition Talisman Sourcebook for the Animal Wife has now concluded and we would like to thank all involved for a great show. Don't forget, our new exhibition At Water & Leaflet 1 from LA based photographers Nathanael Turner and Michael Hernandez opens this Friday, August 30 at 5pm.

KH: I’ll start with a confession. I really like the word trinket! I’m not entirely sure why, it could just be the sound. One of the images from my PMS series is a girl burning a trinket that most Japanese people attach to their phone. These are usually exchanged by lovers so the image has some “heated” meanings for those that understand the cultural dialogue at play. No doubt your pictures also hold some powerful and not too discernable meanings. What do the trinkets you have scanned for this exhibition ward off?

DH: It is a great word, nice to say like belly or pappadam! But I think of a trinket as a disposable object of not much value, like something you would get from a gum machine or a Christmas cracker. I refer to my objects as talismans, charms or amulets as its suggestive of a higher importance to its owner. Just to clarify, the odd trinket has transcended to talisman status in my collection and although they may be important to me I’m sure others view them as trinkets.

The process of investing mental and emotional energy into an object, action or idea is something we all do and each object I scanned have varying importance to me. The signet rings belonged to my maternal and paternal grandmothers and my mother and are a symbol of the strong women in my life. The ballerina is from my first music box and although the box is long gone, the dancer has travelled all over the world with me. She is a reminder to remained composed and graceful at all times but also to just whirl like a dervish every now and then because there is nothing quite so liberating and childlike as spinning until you fall down.

There is also a number of universal objects such as wishbones, coins, a shooting star, and an eyelash collection for the purposes of making wishes, the odd fairy tale reference with frogs for hope that a gorgeous princely husband will come along. I’ve also scanned objects that have made appearances in other works of mine – the mirror and scissors I photographed my grandmother with (reflection on and snipping the thread of life) the rabbit fur from the cloak that I made and photographed my daughter wearing (protection) the vintage porcelain teeth that I used in a sculptural work (fear of bad parenting) and the list goes on…

This series is an extension of your recently completed (congratulations) Masters by Research through RMIT. Can you briefly outline that project? I know it has a wonderful title as with this exhibition. Also, I worked with you on your Honours project so I wonder how much that influenced the more recent work?

This body of work has a direct lineage from my Honours project back in 2009 at LTU. It heralded a new way of working for me. Once upon a time I would pack my camera bag, head out in the morning and not return til after dark. This methodology became redundant when I had children and my process became house bound for a few years. I took up sewing again, a skill that my mum taught me when I was 7 or 8 looking to produce a stylish wardrobe for my Barbie! This change of life situation and art practise pushed my work in a sculptural/object direction which has continued into my Masters Research project. The Black Swan and Postnatal Depression: preventive talismans and transformative garments for ‘bad’ mothers developed out of a coping mechanism that I used when I was in the depths of depression after giving birth to our second child.

In the centuries-old fairy tale of the Swan Maiden, a man sees a white swan shed her feathered robe to bathe, revealing a beautiful maiden. He steals the enchanted garment preventing the Swan Maiden from flying away so she will marry him and bear his children. The children eventually give away the robe’s hiding place, enabling the Swan Maiden to transform again into her swan shape and flee, leaving her husband and children behind. In a personal re-imagining of the tale, the swan is black rather than white, and only the mother knows the location of the enchanted robe. Rather than escaping her marriage, my version of the Black Swan uses the charmed garment to remove herself from moments of maternal crisis, as a protective measure for both the children and herself. In this research project I explored ideologies of motherhood and the contradictions and complexities of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ motherhood. I will draw on my firsthand experience of Postnatal Depression and the inherent binaries of Animal Wife narratives - in particular the Black Swan motif - focusing on the fluid, transformative spaces between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ motherhood. The project was realised through the creation of garments that suggest escape through transformation, and talismans, amulets and charms that embody the dual purposes of watching over the child in the mother’s absence and shielding the child from the ‘bad’ mother’s presence. Gosh, it makes me sound horrible!

You work across several mediums but all with clarity for an end result. Can you elaborate on what these are and how they relate back to lens-based practice?

Well, it’s funny because I actually identify as a photographer, but I suppose I’d be perceived as something quite different. I found myself moving away from photography as a single medium for the purposes of convenience, as we have already discussed, but also because it failed to tell the whole story anymore. I don’t really think too much about what medium I’d like to use but what process or materials will best express my intent. I think black and white photography has given me a reduced colour palette, I tend toward medium format photography these days for the simple reason that I like the democracy of the square, and working in a darkroom and now with digital printing photography has given me a deep appreciation for finish, a skill that I regard as highly valuable.

You had ethical issues akin to Sally Mann and, although slightly different but within Australia, Bill Henson (let’s not go there), how do you feel about that now? Is it something we should discuss or just acknowledge the fact that we are an all-too-often backwards looking country? This is of course also the Philip Lorca-di Corcia case.

Yes, as part of my project I had planned to photograph my children in a similar vein to that of my Honours project. For a number of reasons (power relationship, age of consent, secondary focus of research) my application didn’t even make it to the sitting committee. I was livid at the time, then panicked, and I artistically froze for a couple of months before embarking on an ‘unblocking’ process of scanning and a drawing-a-day workshop.

I now understand, appreciate and embrace the University’s reasons for turning down my project. Academia has the responsibility to benchmark ethical research, be it art or science, which the rest of the community can look to for guidance.

Having said that, there are a number of off spins from the process such as being forced out of my comfort zone to produce works unlike anything I had made before and finishing at the University with half a project still to create. At this point I leave myself open to criticism from the public akin to Mann, Henson etc.

I first saw this work in publication form. You know us Wallflowerians are big on books. How do you feel about the work in print and exhibition form? How do they relate? And what is your most cherished publication (you can mention 3 only)?

I quite enjoyed the process of turning the scans into prints. As you know, I only ever planned to use this process as an ‘unblocker’ so I never envisaged them as anything other than a digital file. However I prefer them in book form because they are a source material, a catalogue or a witch’s recipe book of spells and charms if you like, so they still have greater potency in this format for me. And I love the grey felt cover!

Cherished publications. Well my most cherished is a book I first discovered at the Brunswick library when I was studying at Brighton Bay (now PIC Hawthorn). Robert Frank and moving to Melbourne went hand in hand for me and after having it on permanent loan for a year I saved up and bought my own copy of The Americans. Others might be Kiki Smith’s Prints and Things, and my Blindspot collection, hard to narrow down because there is also my copy of Cornelia Parker’s book that I bought on a visit to the Tate in London…

Slightly politically charged question being a post-exhibition interview but it makes sense considering you have lived in this region for most of your life and we both work at La Trobe University (who are now an official supporter of Wallflower). Firstly, how was your experience exhibiting at Wallflower? Being local is was a very big crowd at the opening, which we – of course – like. Secondly, what role do you think the gallery plays in a regional city? Do you have any advice for the motley Team Wallflower?   

Rushed but surprisingly stress free! Many thanks to Krystal Seigerman at LTU for her terribly professional assistance for getting the prints out and up in time, and the staff were very open and obliging to all my requests for access, hanging, painting plinths and miscellaneous. Being local is always an advantage when it comes to crowd numbers and local press interest, but I am always humbled by the people who make an effort to come to my openings. I see the gallery as having a twofold purpose here in Mildura. In my educators guise that they showcase international work in a small regional centre is of great value and importance not only to the artistic community but also to the students. They can see what a small contemporary gallery runs/looks like without having to leave home (but do leave home and go see other galleries in other cities please students!) and keep abreast of what’s happening in photomedia around the world. It’s also an advantage for local artists to be able to show in such a professional setting along side the likes of Thomas Breakwell and Georgia Metaxis. I also see the breaking down of a divide between the city and the country, that a number of artists who are coming to exhibit in Mildura either have or are forging connections with the region, often returning with or after a show.

Finally, as we always do – tunes, what do you suggest is good listening while taking in this collection of your collection?

I’ll confess I don’t listen to music very much and I certainly can’t work with it on. I had an epiphany recently after a trip to Melbourne. I think at heart I am an urban dweller but find the white noise of being in the city interferes with my ability to think straight (especially now that my head is filled with extra voices of children/husband) So I live in the country not for the landscape, not for the lifestyle but for the silence…

Having said that, I like to listen to music when I’m relaxing or running and have been going through my old collections recently - Archers of Loaf, Leonard Cohen, old Nick Cave. I have young children who are forever downloading horrible pop music on iTunes and have a shameful knowledge of what’s in the top 10. When I’m entertaining I like background music, and have been enjoying the jazz on Saturday evenings on Radio National. While taking in this work I think something instrumental so that there is no leading narrative, so it’s open to personal interpretation. 

In Conversation | Daniel Boetker-Smith

With the Mildura Writer's Festival fast approaching, we regrettably come to the end of another fantastic exhibition. So the Wallflower crew interviewed Daniel Boetker-Smith about his past, present and future for the conclusion of The Murray River Project: A Gazetteer of Digressions.

Daniel, can you tell us a little about the time you have spent in other countries? How have these travels influenced your photographic work?

I was born here in Australia, but only lived here til I was 2. Due to marriages and divorces etc I have moved around constantly since then. I’ve lived in England, Ireland, and Australia. I spent six years in my twenties wandering around North America, Canada, Alaska, South America & Australia trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve never really called anywhere ‘home’, which is why as a photographer I guess I am interested in those stories that don’t necessarily go from A to Z in a linear fashion but rather flit about, and move in digressive and disruptive ways.

 

You mention “Anastomosis” in your statement; a term referring to the branching and reconnection of the river and the links this has to storytelling and your methodology in creating the photographic image. Can you elaborate on your relationship with the Murray River and how it relates to your project?

My Dad was actually born in a town on the QLD/NSW border in what’s called the Murray Darling Basin. Ive only met him a handful of times, and we don’t really have a good relationship, though I do love him in my own way. This theme of a narrative that doesn’t get resolved, that isn’t linear, that doesn’t reach a satisfactory conclusion is one that resonates with because of my own history. I was drawn to the Murray initially because I noticed in it a resistance to the control placed upon it by all the dams and channels that have been constructed. Its natural state is one of anastomosis, where the water floods and recedes in a lacework pattern across the landscape. I think that’s a beautiful image for how stories should move, not in one direction, but just out, uncontrolled. The Murray is also so rich because of its Indigenous heritage, it is so important and so connected to the lives of the people who live and have lived along it. The river seems to have absorbed those generations of stories and I was really interested in creating a narrative where the River is allowed to be mysterious and unknowable – not just another rant about the environmental or the social but the spiritual connection the River has to storytelling - a complex, contradictory and innate one.

 

I saw you present your PhD research at a postgraduate seminar in Sydney last year and as with all of these events presenters were asked to stick to a strict timeframe - you went well over. Tell us about "digression" (remember this is a blog not a novel!).

Digression is perfectly summed up by Yogi Berra:  ‘when you come to a fork in the road, take it!’

There is still a fair bit of criticism towards Visual Arts and Photography postgraduate research. Personally, I do a agree that the time required takes a lot away from the actual act of photographing and other projects. As a PhD student, what are your thoughts on this?

A PhD doesn’t make any sense until you are almost finished it, it can’t make sense before that because it has to be ‘new’ territory that you are covering. If you knew what you were doing, then that would mean you’d done it before. I think each person deals with that conundrum differently. But I do have reservations about how the system of postgraduate fine art research is set up, but we have to remember that it is in its infancy here in Australia. There are plenty of models in Europe and USA which are much more open and I think we’ll see those come into action over here in the next few years.

Examples such as Takashi Homma, Christian Patterson, Yann Gross and so on, each explore a concern with the way in which photography can bear witness to the contemporary world. Is there such a thing as "new documentary" or even "new new documentary"?

I don’t know what its called but - I think photography has realised that its audience is much more savvy and intelligent than it previously gave them credit for. As a result in the last few years photographers, particularly in what has in the past been called ‘documentary’ photography, have attempted to break away from a linear and constructed form of visual storytelling and appropriated a more poetic, that is to say, experimental, form of putting together something that can engage and move an audience.

I know you have been working on a few new(ish) projects including the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive. http://photobookarchive.com/ care to elaborate on these and the future you see for them?

I launched the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive earlier this year, it is a not-for-profit physical library of self-published and independent photobooks based in Melbourne. The archive is made up of photobooks donated by artists, editors or publishers; it features work either produced in the Asia-Pacific region, or work by photographers from an Asia-Pacific country. The APPA is an open-access archive that accepts submissions of DIY, limited edition, print-on-demand, handmade, and artist’s books. It’s a way of preserving and disseminating books that would normally be inaccessible to the general photographic audience. I can see this Archive getting out-of-control, way too big, I am looking for a space in Melbourne to house it.

My new photographic project is about the Royal Charter, a boat that sank off the coast of Wales in the UK in the 1850s with millions of pounds of gold from the Ballarat and Castlemaine goldfields. Most of it has been recovered, but there is still some down there. I was in the UK a few months ago shooting for it, and I am returning again later in the year. I find it odd that there is all this stuff (gold) taken out of the ground in country Victoria sitting on the bottom of the sea only a few metres from the coast in North Wales. It’s a series of landscapes and seascapes.

As with all our interviews, what tunes would you recommend listening to while viewing your wonder Gazetteer?

From the 90s – Portishead

From the Noughtys – Augie March

From the 20teens – James Blake

In Conversation | Georgia Metaxas

Georgia Metaxas, Mourners #6

In the lead up to our second show of the year, Wallflower is thrilled to present a conversation between curator Kristian Haggblom and Georgia Metaxas.

Georgia the last time you were in Mildura you gave a wonderful talk at La Trobe University Art Forum Lecture series and Louis had an exhibition that included scanned found notes. We had an amazing few days of photography talk until 14: 46 (Japanese time) on the 3/11. What are your memories of that weekend? 

A heat wave followed by floods, treacherous roads and swarms of locusts. Family albums with images of husbands in coffins, many many cups of tea and talk of loss, memories, grief and sadness and the sound of locusts being swept away from front doors. Then, came the terrifying crescendo of the events in Japan.  Our trip to Mildura in 2011, and the events that occurred around us were nothing short of biblical !

Your photography often teeters along the line of documentary and staged methodologies. This is certainly not a new way of working but is very much “in vogue”, who interests you at the moment that is working in a similar manner?

You are quite right, there are a lot of photographers with similar methods and areas of interest. Staged methodologies within the ‘real world,’ bringing it into the framework of ‘documentary.’  Some photographers whose work interests me include, Trihn Sondergaard, Broomburg & Chanarin, Clare Strand. I was fortunate to see Katie Grananans work at Saatchi gallery when in London last year. Her series Boulevard, successfully achieves the tension that I look for in making work.

I often encourage students to engage further with their subjects/subject matter rather than constantly photographing their everyday surroundings and friends. How important is your engagement with community throughout this project? And perhaps also the sustained working technique?

My work stems from the people around me, weather that be my family, friends or people I am working with at a particular time. It is important to the work however, that this remain a launching pad for a broader conversation, one that does not just focus on an isolated individual, story or event. It is a privilege to work alongside communities and organisations I enjoy the fact that this means that I am constantly challenging myself and accommodating outside factors in the work. I feel this definitely helps drive the work into a broader domain.

Entering churches, homes, nursing homes, etc with your “portable studio” you must have had fascinating experiences, care to share one with us?

One of the women who agreed to sit for me was an Italian lady, for whom wearing black every day was only one of the ways that she demonstrated her level of devotion to her deceased husband and to his memory. Photography played a significant role in aiding to illustrate this dedication too.

In the portrait I have made of her she wears a portrait of him around her neck, it has been etched onto a gold plaque and resembles a hologram, only visible from certain angles, very difficult to photograph. There are portraits of him dotted all around their family home they been made using various methods. The same portrait re-appears on the wall, framed conventionally, and also on the dinning room table where it accrues a certain status. I imagine that this image may also appear on the headstone of his tomb. There is also a photograph of the couple on the mantle, etched into resin, it lights up like a rainbow in a multi-coloured kind of fashion.

My interest in the photos around the house did not go unnoticed and lead to a conversation that revealed that they had met vicariously through photography. On migrating to Melbourne his family had suggested that she might be a good bride. As she was still living in Italy, they decided to both visit photographic studios and have their portraits taken. He sent his portrait to Italy; she approved and so sent her portrait to him in Australia. He wrote to her and asked for her hand in marriage, she agreed and migrated to Australia where although betrothed to one another they met in person for the first time.

She showed me the original two original photographs. I like that the project is a constant reminder of photography.

There is a constant emergence of photography and especially portraiture prizes nationally/internationally, I think a lot of these are dubious, what are your thoughts? 

Competitions are a complicated beast. I have had work selected and shown in numerous award shows, so am aware of the benefits of being selected as a finalist. The work gets seen in good company and in a professional manner. I was thrilled to have been voted peoples choice at last years Bowness, there is something very humbling about being the recipient of a democratic vote.

I do however select and submit to competitions very carefully. There are some (generally overseas) that attempt a grab at usage rights, others that may sound like they have good causes or initiatives but on closer inspection have political or social persuasions that do not necessarily align with me or my work.

Then of course there is the cost involved. It is a given that it costs to produce the work, but then to submit, frame and freight the work to a gallery is costly. After some quick math you realise that if the prize money were divvied up between each finalist each artist would receive an adequate artist fee!

It is understandable that galleries need to raise revenue, however it would be great to see galleries putting the art and the artists interests first, and be seen to be encouraging discourse on photography rather than encouraging a competitive field, which in itself, is questionable.

Black and blackness plays an important role in photography, literally and theoretically, can I bother you to elaborate on this quote; “The Mourners are absorbed by the void that is black, living mementoes – vessels for mourning, fixed by a photograph, which in turn alludes to a double death”?

Black encourages multiple readings and allows for several entry points into the project. I enjoyed revelling in this for three years, and should probably mention that it did take the entire thesis to cover this ground! However I’ll attempt to get it down to a couple of kernels here to help clarify the quote above.

Black reminds us of the photographic process as well as a photograph’s inherent connection to memory, death and to the representation of these rather immense themes.  Black is also integral to the act of mourning, the fact that this act is perpetual in The Mourners is also an important consideration.

The quote you mention above refers to the symbolic notions that come from this act of mourning and what it points to photographically. The question I asked was, what happens when a living memento is photographed? If the theorists are right (and we know who they are!) and all photographs are “memento mori” is this not then a doubling up of death?

A sitter’s presence in the series immediately indicates an absence; that of the deceased for whom is mourned. In fact her presence is governed by this absence.

The photograph envelops both the mourner and the mourned. Therefor a mourner appears but also disappears, hovering somewhere in-between, her own identity comes into question. A mourner then, whose “life” has been erased by the ritual of perpetual mourning must now die again at the hands of the camera. In this way she becomes, arguably, a symbol of a double death.

Has the mourners project now been completed? I know it was your Masters project that was recently given the thumbs-up? What’s next? Want to hint at new project/s?

Having never before studied at university, I was pretty thrilled to have been awarded the Masters with only minimal changes, mostly grammatical. It feels like quite an achievement.

I have finished making portraits for the series, however, seeing as I’ve only ever shown a fraction of the work it also feels incomplete. I’m looking forward to the right opportunity to be able to do that.

It is a hard project to move on from, however I am enjoying having a newfound perspective and understanding of my work, which has come might I add from three years of navel gazing! I’m not entirely sure ‘what’s next’ but am very excited at the prospect. My projects have never come quickly and have always taken time, so this is far from a pickle, quite the opposite.

Throughout our Wallflower interviews we have been asking people to recommend what music you would listen to or encourage people to while viewing the work – any ideas?

This question is a very difficult one to answer, as music instantly re-contextualises the work, it feels weird! Anyhow, initially I was going to suggest Mozart’s Requiem, or perhaps Mogwai’s I know you are but what am I? Both pigeonhole the work so I thought the only alternative is complete silence, at the expense of sounding precious I was then going to suggest John Cage's 4'33. I then chatted to Louis about it my conundrum. He suggested, actually he requested, a tune that he’d like his brother (a pianist) to play at his funeral, Eric Satie’s Gnossiennes No.1 . Perfect, so there it is.

'The Mourners' will open Friday March 8th from 5-7pm and run until April 6th.

Catalogue download link: http://www.ccp.org.au/docs/catalogues/GeorgiaMetaxas.pdf

georgiametaxas.com

Event | In Conversation

 

In addition to the solo exhibition "Viewing Platforms" opening this Thursday, at Edmund Pearce there will also be an informal "In Conversation" between Kristian Haggblom and Louis Porter on Saturday, December 1 from 2pm. 

This is a good chance for people to further understand the work in the exhibition and other projects through Haggblom and Porter's dialogue and there will be opportunity for questions from the audience. For more information on the exhibition visit: http://edmundpearce.com.au/

In Conversation Haggblom & Porter
Viewing Platforms
December 1, 2pm
Exhibition runs Nov 28 - Dec 15

Edmund Pearce Gallery
Level 2, Nicholas Building
37 Swanston St.
Melbourne

The gallery would appreciate if people RSVP through their Facebook event.
 
kristianhaggblom.com
louisporter.com

In Conversation | Robert Canali

Robert Canali's work will be opening at Wallflower on Friday September 14 from 5-7pm,. As with previous shows, we asked Canali a series of questions about his work, his music, plans and the exhibition.

Mr. Canali, you make primarily photographs but also sculptures and installations. You are in a band – Grounders and have been discussing video with me. Any other outlets? And how do they all come together, if at all?

  

My creative pursuits are not necessarily linked by any premeditated reason or purpose, but rather represent an evolution. It always begins with an idea and from there I try to source the ideal format to facilitate that concept. For example, I came to photography as a sculptor; I only started shooting because I wanted to understand how the camera worked. It was in my research of the camera and its workings that inspired my photographic work. The same can be said for my place in the band: I one day decided I wanted to learn how to play drums, so I saved up, bought a kit, and taught myself to play. Just as I had taught myself how to use a large format camera I taught myself rudiments and rhythms on the kit. It has often been throughout the learning process that some of my most successful work is made. I find the mistakes along the way to be the most exciting moments, for it is in those instances that I can respond to what I am doing and filter a response. This can be said to describe most of my pursuits in life. I am never consciously aiming for all of my ambitions to come together in one way or another because each act, though unique, is an extension of myself.

The images featured in GHOST NOTES are all connected but the viewer may not get this at first, can you elaborate on that connection (feel free to drop some science)?

Aside from all of the work being photographic there are several links between each piece in the show. For starters the works share a certain aesthetic, one piece informs the next whether it be through colour, shape, texture or size. These formal elements ground the body of work and make it whole. In addition to the look of the work, each photograph was conceived of the same subject. The backdrop for the work is Western Canada - Banff National Park and rural Alberta. There I found landscapes that revealed themselves as sculptures. I treated the geometry of these monuments as a painter would pigment on their pallet. There isn't really a need to reference any science to describe the relationship between the subject matter in the work. Figurative or abstract, they all come from the same source, the mountains. The black and white works act as an index, suggesting a foundation or background from where the rest of the work evolved. The geodes are minerals I found while traversing these landscapes and the more abstracted images are actually macro photographs of light shining through paper-thin sections of those very minerals. The work comes full circle in a way, panning in and out on the same object, showcasing it in ways that make it seem possible for that object to be more than it is, or something it could never be. It is these possibilities that I am after in this work and in all of my work.

  

Your sculptural work is very photographic and it seems, in some sense, to pay homage to analogue technologies, how did it begin? Presuming it came after photography.

  

The sculpture you're referring to, Vessel, was created quite spontaneously. It began as most things do, with an idea and a sketch. Though it may not reflect this in its polished finish and construction, it all came together quite organically. I'm glad you sense its reference to analogue technologies, as the inspiration was definitely photography and the tools that engineer the craft. I wanted to make something seductive that spoke to the ephemeral aspects of the medium and the practice.

Can you tell us a little more about the title GHOST NOTES? 

The title Ghost Notes is actually a term used in music theory to describe a note with rhythmic value but no apparent tone. This was brought to my attention while learning how to play drums. Imagine if you will, tapping lightly on the surface of a table and every so often tapping once a little harder while maintaining the same tempo. The result is a pulse that lays under the beat, a ghost in the rhythm. Similarly the work in this show accents facets of these landscapes that are embedded within them. The title is also fitting as it describes the work regardless of the term’s technical definition. Some of the imagery harkens back to a dead era of photography. With this work I strived to take what the since departed masters of black and white photography achieved, and transition it into a contemporized form using novel techniques and modern philosophies.

  

Like prior exhibitions in the past, I have asked you (the artist in the main space at Wallflower) to choose a video piece for the Projection Room that would work with your own project. Can you give us some thoughts on Geoffrey Pugen’s ROCK and how it relates to your photographs? Connections are obvious but it would be good to hear if you have anything to add.

  

What I find most captivating about Pugen’s work is the way his piece reveals the subtle nuances of a rock. In his video the surface of the mineral shimmers and reflects light as stunning little spectrums amidst a sea of black. As the camera circles, these revelations come and go, fading in and out of focus. This effect spoke to my practice, reminding me of my process while making some of the work in this show. Positioning and repositioning minerals on light tables, waiting for the perfect angle to present itself. The moment when the inanimate object came to life, boasting magnificent colour and depth.

Have you been to Death Valley?

  

No but I am dying to go...no pun intended.

Tell us something about the art scene in Toronto?

  

It may lack the rich history and vibrancy of Paris, Venice, New York or Berlin, but in its humility and youth it certainly has its own voice.

You also told me this project has come to an end – what’s next?

  

Allow me to rephrase that; "come to an end" sounds too definitive. Let's say I have benched this work for now to pursue more current curiosities. As of late I have moved away from the camera, as I have made most of my work about what happens inside of it. I have been experimenting with a variety of camera-less photographic techniques as well as devising some of my own. The results have been exciting so far. I can say this without giving too much away, the work does not read as photo as much as it does painting or illustration.

Any questions for us?

  

What music were you listening to while installing the show?

Well, I think we'll be listening to some Squarepusher, a touch of Aphex, Black Moth Super Rainbow and possibly some Autechre if the mood takes us.

Canali's show in the main exhibition space will run until October 17. 

www.robertcanali.com

www.groundersmusic.com

Image: "Drumheller" Robert Canali, Archival Pigment Print, 40"x50", 2012

In Conversation | Shigeru Takato

Shigeru Takato’s "Televisions Studios" & "Our Elusive Cosmos" will be opening Friday July 13 from 5-7pm. In anticipation of the exhibition, we asked Takato a series of questions about his experiences, work, and current research.


You are a Japanese photographer, well-travelled, and now living in Germany; has this all come about through your practice?

I used to think that I travel to photograph.
Now I think that I photograph to travel.

In the exhibition for Wallflower you are predominantly showing work from the “Television Studios” series, which is an extensive body of work. When did you begin this project and what was your initial concept?

I started this project 2001 when I was an art student at Auckland University in New Zealand. So it has been over a decade since I started it. It is interesting that you ask what my "initial" concept was. You guessed it right, I have changed the concept or rather the way I see the works since I started the series, although I still photograph TV Studios exactly the same way as I started.

I remember when I was a little boy back in Japan, I was always curious to find out what was behind the sacred altar whenever I visited a shrine. "Is that really where god lives?" This curiosity combined with an irresistible impulse to poke my head in highly forbidden territory stuck in back of my head for all these years. At the beginning of the series I wanted to photograph them like the scene of a crime. I mean, not in the negative sense that the TV media is criminal, but the TV studio as a place which is mentally and technologically charged and draws a lot of attention. I thought (and I still think) that photography can reveal or trigger something other than what we already know about the place. I wanted to photograph the place, which was to be scrutinised to the smallest details. This was my initial drive for the series.

After finishing my Bachelor of Arts in Auckland I had a chance to study in Germany for a year. There I continued the series. As my stay in Germany was extended, the series continued within and beyond Europe. Now it is in my 10th year in Germany. As the series started to grow, how I look at the work has also slowly developed in other directions. I started to see, for example, political agendas and regional colours of different TV stations. Now I predominantly photograph news studios, which I feel are more charged with human energy (certainly no more game or cooking shows). Perhaps I became clearly aware of this change when I was in Paris 2004.

On the 9th of November 2004 after negotiating with the personnel for permission to photograph, I was sitting in the news studio of France 2 (see attached "Paris I 2004"). The perfectly shining empty news set was ready, not for shooting but for broadcasting a breaking news that could fly in at any second. Everyone in the news editing room was anticipating updates from where Yasser Arafat was hospitalised with a critical condition in Paris. I was looking at the sacred news desk which was certainly a highly charged electrode that kept away anyone who dears to approach for 4 hours. Then I was allowed to photograph it as the updates came through that he still held out. On the next day I was in a different part of the city for a left-leaning independent TV station, who six months after the start of broadcasting via Eiffel tower, was banned by the media authority due to its inappropriate content. At the time of photographing, it was pirate-broadcasting locally within a radius of 1 km from the studio (see attached "Paris lV 2004"). The next day on the 11th of November Arafat passed away in the hospital.

When I left New Zealand for Germany in 2003, I did not think of carrying out a photographic survey of TV studios of the world but now I think it is essential as the TV media is a global phenomenon and it is my stance and persistent attitude of keep photographing and dealing with this giant phenomenon, and that hopefully shows through my work.

As curator I was keen to juxtapose the news studios with another work (as you have done in the past), especially a landscape as I think all of your projects relate to the landscape in some way, be that obvious or subtle. Can you elaborate on the work Las minas de San Jose –Test Site #2 that also features in this show?

“Las minas de San Jose - Test site 2 2008” is a part of a series called "Our Elusive Cosmos". The series shows different landscapes on Earth whose histories relate to outer space / cosmos. This particular place, Las minas de San Jose is on a Spanish island of Tenerife in the Atlantic Ocean where the European space agency tested their prototype Mars-rover in 2005 whose real version was supposed to be sent to the planet in 2011. The series is similar to TV studio series in the way that the event or story belonging to the place is absent and only the surrounding that witnessed the event is present in the photograph. I want the viewers to imagine the event and want every corner and detail of the photograph to be scrutinised as a proof.

My all-time favourite photographs are ones that the astronauts of Apollo missions took with hand-held film cameras on the surface of the Moon. Until the Americans landed in the late 60's the lunar landscapes were untouched, in fact untouched for the last 4.5 billion years. Every time I look at the photographs I am fascinated to look for the missing 4.5 billion year gap. Nowadays the NASA's three roaming Mars-rovers continuously send pictures of the surface of Mars to us. I am often amazed by how the Martian landscapes look very similar to ours here on Earth. It is certainly imaginable why Las minas de San Jose was chosen for Mars-rover test site (apart from the fact that Tenerife is a famous holiday destination). I sometimes cannot help being sceptical about the digital technology that can easily create images or suspecting conspiracy theory that the Americans photograph them on a desert somewhere in Nevada. Again I find myself fixed on the surface of photographs fascinated to analyse into details to clear my suspicion.

You have referred to the studios as “science-fiction spacecraft control rooms”, which could be literally read that all our news is presented to us by aliens! Globally we rely on these spaces of information transition as a form of (almost) addiction; regardless of whether they present false or factual information. Presenting them to the viewer empty, I would think, encourages the viewer to not only reconsider what we are being told, but also, how we are receiving this information. Recently you reconstructed a news studio through projections at Kiosk 24 in Germany which was more of a public installation. Is your underling pursuit with this work to question the validity of both images and the media?

The crazy cult of TV media but yes I must admit that I am addicted to news that comes out of the TV studios! It is almost like soap opera for me. I have my favourite news anchors and reporters. They behave like actors (especially if you look at CNN international, they present themselves much like the Hollywood actors), I also see other characters like politicians and football players. I am not cynical. I mean, if I sit in front of a TV and just consume the information, how can I perceive it as truth? But I must also admit without the media I have no idea what is going on beyond my vicinity. Probably that is why I sometimes get out of my living room to travel and see with my own eyes. Of course, I do not and cannot witness most of things first hand presented by the media but I it is my desperate measure to at least be there and witness it where the news is churned and sent out from.

I really like how you say it, ".. to question the validity of both images and the media" This installation was done with wallpapers pasted on the walls, the floor and the column within the exhibition space. You have to stand at a certain point preferably with one eye to be able to see perfectly undistorted image of an empty news studio in 3D while the exhibition room itself remains also to be an empty space. I wanted to emphasise that the media has a potential to be one-sided or biased in telling their stories. At the same time the room look like a real TV studio but constructed only with wallpaper on which the image was printed. It was really the first time where I created a work that criticised the media. This was the time when the uprising of Arab-Spring (I do not like how the media named the event) was dominating the news. The work really posed me a question about documenting something and fair judgement of it.

I am sure you are aware of the writings of Paul Virilio? I am a big fan of his theories and think they a pertinent to your work especially in relation to speed, imagery and technology. In Virilio-esque fashion I have googled a few very random and open-ended quotes from the WWW. Do you care to respond to them, any others or the work of Virilio in relation to your photography?

“The speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization is the speed of light…” - Paul Virilio

I was not aware of Paul Virilio. Thanks for bringing my attention to it. I may have touched on his area in my last answers.Television stations send out their electromagnetic waves called TV waves, which travel as fast as the speed of light.

In 2006 I was in Buenos Aires. I was in the reception area of channel 13. I had an appointment there to ask for a permission to photograph.

I had a small portfolio with me, which comprised of about 20 TV studio photos in clear sheets. The personnel who I was talking with asked me if he can take the portfolio up to the director to show him and see if the permission can be granted. 20 minutes later he came back with it and told me that I can photograph their news studios. They had three news studios in the same building! He told me the TV business is very lucrative in his country. Anyway, after the shooting was done, I was on my way back to my hotel sorting out my bag in the subway. Then I noticed that the photographs of my portfolio file were in a different sequence and some of them were upside down. I figured out that they must have photocopied the photographs to study for their new future studio designs. I thought I was on the observing side, documenting the TV studios and the media as a photographer. By revealing TV studios of other parts of the world, I suddenly found myself in a middle of globalisation process.

"There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.” - Paul Virilio

"…dream of being blind" sounds like meditation.
"…everything becomes visible"... I think people themselves want to be visible. They tell others about themselves. Facebook, Twitter, self-documenting films and photographic works etc...
I am still resisting such things though.
I still want to be invisible behind the camera.

“The field of vision is comparable, for me, to the terrain of an archaeological dig. To see is to be on guard, to wait for what emerges from the back-ground, without any name, without any particular interest: what was silent will speak, what is closed will open and will take on a voice.” - Paul Virilio

I find this passage beautiful.

I think if there is silence, imagination / a voice will take up the gap and start telling stories.
Having said that, I don't know if silence can be heard these days. So many things are visible and everywhere.
You got to be loud to be heard.

Finally, many photographers I speak to these days don’t like to discuss methodology for varied reasons – but anyway here goes: technically you are a very traditional-type of image maker (which I respect), you use a large-format camera, shoot film, make analogue type C prints and even retouch them yourself. Is this important and/or related to the work or just personal working methodology?

Computer-based image making offers too many options to me. If I start using this technique, I could never finish my print. I simply cannot handle it. If I use the same film, the same paper and the same way of making photographs, then I know what the results I can expect. I know these days photographers compose their pictures on the computer screen and some of them (well at least in Germany) would like to be called an artist not a photographer. For those artists, who know how the picture should look at the end and work towards it, computer is perfect. In my case, I usually place my camera and photograph what is in front of the lens. My post production process is simple but time-consuming retouching, which I wish were much more simplified like the stamp tool in Photoshop!

Oh and any new projects you can tell us about? I know your soon returning to New Zealand…

I am spending a week in New Zealand, then I go to Indonesia to travel and photograph for a month.
The next new work will be a series of erupting volcanoes.
I am still drawn to energy concentrated places that bear stories (news) to tell.
This time the subjects are big and loud.

http://www.shigerutakato.de

In Conversation | Heather Lee


This is the first in a series of interviews which we will be holding with the artists exhibiting at Wallflower. Heather Lee's solo show "Made In England" will be opening this Friday May 18 from 5-7pm. In anticipation of the exhibition, we asked Heather a series of questions about her past work, current research and its relation to the new show.
  
Heather Lee completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2008 and is currently studying a Master of Arts in Interpretive Writing through Charles Sturt University. Since 2004, she has been involved in numerous group exhibitions including most recently, the 2010 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and the 2010 Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Award. Solo exhibitions have included Ovah!, 2008 and Some of it was cricket, 2009. The conceptual basis of Heather’s art is strongly influenced by her research into sports' sociology and the way Australia's historical foundations have permeated through to the present time. She works across various media including printmaking, sculpture, and digital printmaking.

For your honours project through La Trobe uni you made a performative/site specific work on a cricket pitch. Can you tell us a little about it and does it relate to your newer work? 

The installation on the cricket pitch was comprised of 20 metres of silk fabric fixed at each end of the pitch but unattached between the creases on the pitch. On the day of the installation there was a slight breeze which picked up the silk, tossing it about as though the fabric were marking the flight of a cricket ball as it is bowled in a match.  For me the effect was surprising but pleasing as I wanted to highlight the constraints that cricket, with is associated rules and traditions, can impose particular social and cultural values on those who play it.  Although the flight of the ball may vary according to individual bowling actions, the start and end points are predetermined by the construction and marking-out of the pitch.

In addition to this, you made a sound work that was beamed out of the Historical society in Mildura for Palimpsest #8 "Collaborators & Saboteurs" can you elaborate on that piece? 

Being a sound installation, 'Mary's Oratorio' was a departure from my usual work and therefore was somewhat of an experiment.  The aim of the work was to recognise Mary Woorlong of the Kulkyne Tribe, her story and link it to my personal experience of living at the edge of the Woorlong Wetland (an extension of Kings Billabong).  The wetland is a remarkably rich ecosystem which, unlike Kings Billabong, has not been artificially regulated.  By installing the recorded sounds of Woorlong Wetland at the Mildura Historical Society who have a picture of Mary Woorlong in their collection, I hoped to conceptually bring past and present closer together.

You are known for your abstract scans and large scale prints, many of cricket balls. Can you hint at what you are up to for Wallflower and more specifically, how photomedia is incorporated? 

I can reveal that the work will be ball-less, but can't guarantee there won't be any cricket references.

A topic of ongoing debate between myself and a friend (you know who you are JB) is whether my work is classed as 'photography' or 'printmaking'.  I'm for the latter. My background is in printmaking and I see my use of scanning technology as a form of digital printmaking above all else.  As with the printmaking process, the result of my scans are only revealed to me when the image appears on the screen - the equivalent in traditional printmaking would be lifting the paper after putting a plate through the press.  Unlike photography, scanning does not allow you to see the final image prior to capturing it.

Hand Made Perfection I (detail), 2012

Your work seems to incorporate concepts that intersect local history, indigenous history and sport. Is that what you are looking at presently? 

The sociology of sport and the way the colonialism persists through the traditions, rules and intrenched values of cricket continues to intrigue me and inspire my art.  Through this central premise I find myself exploring numerous paths which, often obliquely, relate to my personal experiences and family history.  At this stage, I feel I've only just touched the surface of this investigation and as those who know me would say, I always seem to be able to relate everything back to cricket.  Scarily, I think I'm a bit cricket obsessed.

Can you expand on your role at Mildura Arts Centre and your curatorial studies?  

My role at Mildura Arts Centre (MAC) is that of Acting Gallery & Heritage Coordinator.  Despite the fact that the galleries are closed while the new theatre is being built, there has been huge amount of behind the scenes goings-on including everything from exhibition programming, digital documentation, archiving and conservation of artworks, as well as the ongoing task of liaising with heritage advisors and contractors regarding the conservation management plan for Rio Vista.  There's also the paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork that somehow seems to multiply itself as soon as it hits my desk.

I'm full-time at MAC, but am also completing a Master of Arts in Interpretive Writing via distance education with Charles Sturt University Wagga Wgga.  Although this is a Masters by coursework and two of the three subjects are fairly prescriptive, students have the flexibility to propose their own research topic and complete a major piece of writing (10,000+ words) relating to art curation, exhibition, biography or publication.  My research is on early European responses and visual interpretations of the landscape of the Murray-Darling region of which Mildura is a part.

Heather Lee's exhibition "Made In England" will be at Wallflower Photomedia Gallery May 18 - June 13 | Opening Friday May 18 | 5-7 pm