Ruby slipper moments

An interactive, photographic installation exploring the internal and external representation of the artist in a new environment. Using at hand apparatuses and the manipulation of artist and viewer Ruby Slipper Moments represents the artists adaptation to a new and threatening environment.

From outside the structure audience members can view large scale collages created out of scanned body parts, abstractly assembled as a representation of the artist as a flesh casing. Intercepting these images are random grainy street shots taken with a mobile phone, these images are placed at will on the overhead projectors by the audience members inside the structure. Sandwiched between the internal and external visual representation of self are the shadows of the audience as they pass through the projector beams. Layered through this is a sound scape, coming from small, scratchy hidden speakers. Both the sound scape and mobile phone images were gathered by me taking an image and a 60 second sound recording every time I had a "ruby slipper moment" (moments I wished I could click my heels together three times and be back home in Darwin).

Memoir of Skin

Our bodies house memories. Our scars and wrinkles are the remnants of events that have molded us, they are the topography of our life. Moments in time are stored within our flesh waiting for a touch, scent or sound to release them back into our consciousness. This work explores the lines, textures and patterns of these forgotten memories.

I used Butoh to tap into the performer’s body memory, conjuring up the concealed colours and textures of past that they then mapped out on the bodies surface. In Memoir of Skin the body becomes the canvas and Butoh the tool of expression. The performer used texta, ink, and paint to interpret the patterns of their body memory, making a map of their internal worlds on their external flesh.

In this work I have used the video and photographic documentation of the process to dissemble and reconstruct the performer’s individual experiences to recreate my own memories.

The five films are all representing traumatic, shaping events in my life that sit deep within my body memory. These moments revisit me not in thought but through a sensory resurrection that embodies me physically.

1. Five Years Old and Drowning – 2:30mins Music: Window by The Album Leaf

2. 6ft under and falling – 3mins Music: by Hole

3. I lost Genevieve on the way to the Hospital – 3mins Music Smell Memory by Mum

4. Ngandi' Mirringu (Yolngu Matha for a reciprocal Mother/child relationship– 3mins Music: Mouths Cradle by Bjork and Lullabies by Emily Lubritz

(unfortunately due to technical difficulties I am unable to upload video to my blog at this present time)

Take a good hard look at yourself!

Take a good hard look at yourself! questions the value of self analysis.
Through a lengthy, experimental process I aim to gain objectivity of my own self image. First photographing my reflection onto film, digitising my image, converting it into a series of dots, transferring it to silk, then printing it onto three different surfaces, aluminum - reflective, glass - transparent and muslin- translucent. Through process I separate myself from my image and the time capsule in which it was taken in hope of gaining insight.
This piece was sight specific and created with the gallery in mind.
It required me to learn many new skills and go way beyond my knowledge and resources. With the enthusiasm and help of many strangers and my lecturers I managed to almost achieve my original vision. Moments before the opening two of the pieces fell and shattered, ironic really. As another saying goes, "Don't look too hard, you might not like what you find out!".

City Discarded

The concept for City Discarded grew from Anais Nin's short story "Ragtime".
Over the course of a week a group of performers played out fringe dwellers constructing their very own shanty town in the middle of a central city park in Darwin. City Discarded investigated the notion of home and possession whilst commenting on the communities response to corporate development versus the itinerants dwellings. The performance aimed to provoke debate amongst the community on the issue of ownership and use of public space, whilst looking at individuals personal perception of possession and home.

Life... draw... in...G

my hands are wooden tools
dissecting the page.
as these lines culminate into shadows
ink drips from the cracks of my fingertips...
I bleed the lines I see.

My hands and eyes work in confused unison
adjacent
and in harmony.
Dense heavy shoulders drive the markings,
acting as the grinding block
that conjures the strands of ink.
it forms the language of my fatigue
as I work in automated motion...
switched off...
tuned in to Life.
depicting the draw,
rediscovering the in...
drawing is my breathe
while exhausted the rest of my beaten body sleeps

Through distracted long distance slurring
I race across the page...

The referee has given me time out!

On butchers paper
I breathe...