STUDIONONSTOP

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Walking in the back streets of Enmore and noticing a mature macadamia tree in a front yard. A nice man coming out of his house says “Want some nuts?” Sharing them with Michelle Margolis when I get to her house for a garden tour as part of National Permaculture Day, May 1st 2011.

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Taking a self-sown mulberry tree for a walk along Parramatta Rd and planting it alongside the Hawthorne Canal bike path for future fruit foraging. May 1st 2011.

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Admiring the many mushrooms up after all the autumn rain.

Reading:

Mycelium Running:
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
by
Paul Stamets
Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California 2005

‘Year-round, fungi decompose and recycle plant debris, filter microbes and sediments from runoff, and restore soil. In the end, life-sustaining soil is created from debris, particularly dead wood. We are now entering a time when mycofilters of select mushroom species can be constructed to destroy toxic waste and prevent disease…’ p.10

THE LAB

Open residency project
Ocular Lab
West Brunswick

WEEK FOUR

NOTES.

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Adding the post-dinner loo bucket full of wet sawdust and wee to the growing heap. Seeing my regular route through the weeds now visible as a pathway at the compost site. Replacing the toilet bucket, topping up sawdust and cleaning the loo.

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THE LAB

Open residency project
Ocular Lab
West Brunswick

WEEK THREE

NOTES.

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Riding week two’s collected toilet and organic material back to the compost site on Thea’s bike as honey-wagon. Weeding the overgrown house garden and feeding it to the heap, enjoying time in the sun and air outside in this grassy meadow.

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THE LAB

Open residency project
Ocular Lab
West Brunswick

WEEK TWO

NOTES.

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Clover seeds pushing up through soil and sprouting.

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The red rose Bianca brought on my first day, opening and changing.

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THE LAB

Open residency project
Ocular Lab
West Brunswick

WEEK ONE

NOTES.

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For the first week it felt right to observe things as they were in the Lab. The given conditions, the objects in the room when I arrived – a plinth, a ladder, a trestle table, an amplifier and some foam – and the movement of light and air into and through the space. It was surprising how much was going on in and at the edges of an empty room. I felt no need to remove the objects, figuring I’d wait to see who had left them and what they might be useful for. For the first few days I was strongly mindful of the practices of Thea Rechner and John Borley, as I paid attention to air and light and sat on the front step with the doors open making eye contact with passing drivers.

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THE LAB

For the month of October Lisa Kelly will be developing an open residency project at Ocular Lab, Brunswick West, Melbourne. Less an exhibition than a set of actions, processes, reading and renewal, THE LAB will draw on the Lab’s past use as a private artists studio and observe its shift to a public gallery. Combining the dual purposes of work and presentation space while being attentive to the specific conditions of the site, Kelly will engage in simple process cycles that annex the basic functions of a public venue. Areas of exploration will include onsite waste, streetfront visibility and natural lighting.

This project for Ocular Lab continues the artist’s practice of using critical frameworks to investigate the institutions her work is hosted by. In 2008 her project THE__HALL explored the re-purposing of a community hall into an art gallery by a local council.

Ocular Lab
31 Pearson Street
Brunswick West
VIC

Open & in progress:
Wednesday to Sunday 1pm-5pm
10th October to 1st November.

Closing gathering:
Saturday 31st October 3-5pm

recent reading:

Life Work
Jan Verwoert

‘Working in the field of art makes it very difficult to draw a line between a professional and private life. What’s the best way forward? Life, to start with, is not just about your professional life. There is so much more to it than just work. The trouble is that, when you get into art, that ‘so much more’ is precisely what you want your work to be about. Life is what you want to immerse yourself in through your work. The freedom of the artist and intellectual, Theodor Adorno wrote, lies in the possibility of not having to separate work from pleasure as all those caught up in the system of division of labour do.1 This is our chance for a good life…’

published in Frieze magazine, Issue 121, March 2009
read the full article here

One Day Sculpture
A New Zealand-wide series of temporary artworks.
Symposium and Readings
Wellington
Aeotearoa NZ

woodblock print from Masanobu Fukuoka’s ‘One Straw Revolution’ reaped from Culiblog and used twice without permission

Nothing to give.

catalogue essay

Moon Garden
Mikala Dwyer
Aratoi – Wairarapa Museum of Art and History
Masterton, Aotearoa New Zealand
december 08 – february 09

“Natural farming” is a method of land use developed by Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) on his mountainside farm and orchard in southern Japan. Known also as “Do-nothing” farming for Mr. Fukuoka’s recommendation of doing away with unnecessary work, its grounding is in the four principles of no cultivation, no fertilisers, no weeding and no chemicals. His plentiful crops of rice, citrus and vegetables demonstrated that with careful observation and minimal tending, land left to itself will find a natural pattern and balance. Using cooperative systems of green manure cover crops, rice straw mulches and small grazing animals the Fukuoka method shows that even the most depleted soils can be restored, healing the land and maybe even the spiritual wellbeing of the practicing farmer. Continue Reading »

reading:

Metronome No. 10
Future Academy
Shared, Mobile, Improvised, Hidden, Floating
Oregon, 2006

ON EMPTINESS
MP: you need to have a practical fear in order to raise the value of life. Do you still remember the Cittadellearte when there was the idea of emptiness and no decision, no definition…?
CD: Yes, and no studio. Do you remember when the exhibition was the studio and the residents were always searching for their own place?
MP: I still think that this empty space is very basic and very important. If you have something that has already been decided on you don’t find anything different. Organisation is not about filling things, but about emptying things. An artist today has choice, but only one choice, which is to put their work in a collection, a gallery, or in a museum. There is no other choice. But if you make an empty space maybe an economy will grow that can enable art to become a job in a different way? The need for this void is essential.
CD: That word institution is not necessarily bad. Institution means an association of people…
MP: I don’t complain about institutions! I complain about institutions that I do not like.

Interview with Michelangelo Pistoletto, CD, Biella 04