blood on silk – bloodonsilk

Second post on the installation: Where They were Last Seen, at SCA gallery Sydney.

November 1, 2018November 1, 2018 bloodonsilkLeave a comment

To continue from the last post from late this month – this image is of another element of the work Where they were last seen, my installation selected by two Masters of Art Curating students, Tian Kang and Yunyan Tang for their exhibition Being towards Death in Gallery five of the Sydney College of the Arts/ University of Sydney Gallery. The curatorial premise developed by Tian and Yunyang resulted in a more direct focus on the physicality of the Intensive Care Unit.

The image shows a detail of another of the main elements of the space. This large blanket work frames two walls and is approximately nine metres in width and three metres in height. Made of strips of grey woollen coat fabric, the surface is slightly fluffy and cuddly, but the colour is austere and forbidding. Acting as a record of instances of the patient’s heart rate, blood pressure and oxygenation the hand sewn components are built up to contain both the internal skin of the site wrapped around the bedspace of the patient located in the middle of the gallery.

The exhibition was part of the Curatorial Lab component of the Masters of Art Curating program.

Being Towards Death, the exhibition

October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 bloodonsilkLeave a comment

In Gallery five of the Sydney College of the Arts/ University of Sydney Gallery two Masters of Art Curating students, Tian Kang and Yunyan Tang selected my new installation Where they were last seen for their exhibition Being towards Death. Gallery five is an interesting mix between being a white cube and a non-white cube space. In this installation developed specifically for this exhibition and this site, the curatorial premise developed by Tian and Yunyang resulted in a more direct focus on the physicality of the Intensive Care Unit. The image shows a detail of one of the main elements of the space. The patient bedspace is sited directly underneath a large roof lantern or skylight. The overbed hospital table holds the bedside medical monitor playing the simulation of the visual data and sonic traces of a patient bleeding out while the silk paper bed and pillow shape refutes the functionality of the bed by its ephemeral, flimsy and seemingly transitory nature. The next post will address one of the other elements of the installation, the blanket work.

Fiona Davies Where they were last seen (detail) 2018
Installation, silk paper, found objects, video, framed print, photographic print and fabric.
Size variable as installed Gallery 5 SCA Gallery Sydney. Photo credit Alex Gooding

In terms of the bedspace of the patient the body in healthcare settings occupies a complex but somewhat ambivalent position: it is at the centre of everything yet is at the same time oddly displaced and this is even more pronounced once that body is dead. Then apparently there is little tolerance for the sight of the dead body by others. Speciality transports are used to move the body from the place of death to the morgue. This conceals both the presence and/or the shape of the body.

It is possible that this well-intentioned consideration of the sensibilities of the living members of the public work to dislocate or sever the experiences of the recently dead patient’s family and carers. Until death they were associated with a specific location in the hospital, the bed or bedspace of the patient. After death and the transportation of the body to the morgue they tend to be cut free. There is no physical evidence of the patient in the public sphere of the hospital and the family and carers appear to be of limited further interest to the hospital.

The exhibition was part of the Curatorial Lab component of the Masters of Art Curating program.

New Work – Blood on Silk: Blood Running

August 2, 2018August 2, 2018 bloodonsilkLeave a comment

Video still from a new work Blood on Silk: Blood Running, 2018. The video will be projected onto the surface of a wondercabinet zinc box set on the top of a table. Part of the video of the running blood will occasionally extend onto the floor.

A larger scale recent work from the whole collection of the twenty three units of blood series. Started 2016 and still in progress.

May 13, 2018May 13, 2018 bloodonsilkLeave a comment

In the run up to the Colour Run project at Braemar Gallery in Springwood NSW. I’m having a look at all of the series of works over the years looking at twenty three units of blood. This series is decolourised crosses representing each of the units of blood. They are gilded (badly) aluminium onto rusted steel and other found metal objects. It is harder than you expect to gild onto a rusted surface. The size of this work is 80 x 30 x 90(h) cm.

Revisiting all of the 23 units of blood works

May 8, 2018May 8, 2018 bloodonsilk

In two weeks an exhibition called Colour Run will open at the Braemar Gallery in Springwood. The exhibition is curated by Beata Geyer and one of my works Once upon a time , long ago and far away there were twenty three units of blood has been selected. In the run up I’ve been thinking of the other times I’ve focused on the narrative of Twenty three units of blood.

This work, was one of the first of these works I made, Memorial/ One shift Nov 30, 2000 was exhibited in St Marks Anglican Church,Aberdeen NSW in 2006 as part of Memorial/Double Pump Laplace I

London – Conference

April 21, 2018April 21, 2018 bloodonsilkLeave a comment

Recently I presented at the 2018 Annual Association for Art History conference in London as part of a day long panel on Aural Affects and Effects: Explicit and Implicit sounds and rhythms in contemporary visual media put together by Olga Nikolaeva, Christine Sjöberg and Johnny Wingstedt.

Not only did several aspects of my research fall into place more clearly for me after my presentation (initially disrupted by the fire alarm!) and the follow up questions but also the other presentations in the thread provoked valuable insights that will also feed into the ongoing development of my thinking.

I have been working with the idea of sonnifying the predominantly wave form data visualisation of a bedside medical monitor display for nearly two years and have tested some of my early ideas out at two previous conferences. To confirm the value of my current position and at the same time expose aspects for future exploration was so reassuring.

Then to finish the conference there was an amazing and blunt keynote by Griselda Pollock.