First image of a work looking more closely at blood farming. I’m trying to capture the liminal space occupied by the loneliness of the those abandoned by the system and by others. She looks a little too much like she is wearing a uniform at the moment. Thinking of painting a pattern of small flowers along the hem of her dress.
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.
The quote is from a video fragment from a documentary on Anni Albers to be shown in BBC Four in 2019. Click this link to watch
video interview with artist Ismini Samanidou about the work of Anni Albers .
An exhibition of the fabulous work by Anni Albers is on at the Tate Modern in London, UK until Jan 27 2019. I’m not sure if this one is included but included the image as I have grown increasingly enaged with diagonal red and white stripes ( in my case referring to the barber’s pole as a sign of a surgeon or leech master)
Thanks to the BBC, Tate Modern and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation for pulling all this material together.
Anni Albers, detail of “With Verticals,” 1946, cotton and linen). The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / ARS, NY
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.
On the 17th October from 6-8 p.m. an exhibition Being towards Death curated by University of Sydney, Masters of Art Curating, students, Tian Kang and Yunyan Tang will open at the SCA Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney. They have curated a new work of mine an installation titled Where they were last seen.
On the following evening the 18th October also from 6-8 p.m. Tian and Yunyan with a number of other Master of Art Curating students have also curated another work of mine into a group exhibition titled In Translation at Verge Gallery on the main campus of the University of Sydney. The work selected for this exhibition is Racing Patience ICU, a performative installation from 2018.
From the archives of ARTHouse on Radio BM 89.1 – In this Segment, Justin Morrissey leads this week’s panel discussion on ‘Art & Science’. Justin is joined by Damian Castaldi, Fiona Davies, Solange Kershaw and Julie Ankers. Two tracks from Out of Abingdon’s newest album are also featured.
Image – At the Legacy day for Cudos in the Nano Science Hub at the School of Physics University of Sydney 2017
One of the first works in this series remade. Formerly in an installation where they wrapped around kneelers in a church, now they are sewn together. All the small incisions around the supports are sewn flat and then all the strips of blanket fabric sewn flat to form a very large blanket shape. The numbers are from a reading from a bedside medical monitor and have their own narrative to be read from left to right or right to left.
