‘There were projects which were not possible because of economic, time, space and technical problems. Some forgotten project will come back to mind when it is needed. I contain my projects in my body, which I find as my studio, and I don’t try to remember or describe them all. My working process is intuitive […]
‘There were projects which were not possible because of economic, time, space and technical problems. Some forgotten project will come back to mind when it is needed. I contain my projects in my body, which I find as my studio, and I don’t try to remember or describe them all. My working process is intuitive and I believe its own logic. Being nothing/nothingness and making nothing/nothingness is my goal. It is a long process.’ – Kimsooja from: The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists edited by Mary Anne Jacob & Michelle Grabner University of Chicago Press, 2010. * * * Needless to say, Studiononstop has stopped. In 2010 my studio building in Surry Hills was renovated and the rent tripled. I could no longer afford a studio in Sydney. That year I took a year off art anyway, and these days I do other things. I post occasionally at In the life world and currently on Cutting Edge Permaculture.
Packing before moving, getting rid of stuff and art. Returning unfired clay casts made for The__Hall back to the ground. After five years of no-dig bed making and soil building – the soil I’ll leave behind… Preparing the garden for seeds I vow with all beings to nurture the soil to be fertile each spring […]
Packing before moving, getting rid of stuff and art. Returning unfired clay casts made for The__Hall back to the ground. After five years of no-dig bed making and soil building – the soil I’ll leave behind… Preparing the garden for seeds I vow with all beings to nurture the soil to be fertile each spring for the next thousand years – Robert Aitken
Train travelling to Brisbane for some winter warmth. Inversions workshop with Jessica Stickler Handstand, forearm balance, headstand & shoulderstand. Jivamukti Yoga, Newtown Winter Mushroom Workshop with Will Borowski Alexandria Park Community Centre Milkwood Permaculture
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/hh_brisbane.jpg" alt="" title="hh_brisbane" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-137" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/hh_brisbane.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/hh_brisbane-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Train travelling to Brisbane for some winter warmth. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/inversions_workshop.jpg" alt="" title="inversions_workshop" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-140" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/inversions_workshop.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/inversions_workshop-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Inversions workshop with Jessica Stickler Handstand, forearm balance, headstand & shoulderstand. Jivamukti Yoga, Newtown <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/shitake-log-prep.jpg" alt="" title="shitake-log-prep" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-141" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/shitake-log-prep.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/shitake-log-prep-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Winter Mushroom Workshop with Will Borowski Alexandria Park Community Centre Milkwood Permaculture
7/4/11-24/4/11 ANNA JOHN IAKOVOS AMPERIDIS LISA KELLY SACH CATTS 55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville NSW 2204 AU Life Signs 1. Throughway for a lizard On the 2nd of March I made a first visit to 55 Sydenham Rd. We sat in the space and had a long chat about the effort that went into renovating and […]
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-92" title="55-syd-rd_sign" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/55-syd-rd_sign.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/55-syd-rd_sign.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/55-syd-rd_sign-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> 7/4/11-24/4/11 ANNA JOHN IAKOVOS AMPERIDIS LISA KELLY SACH CATTS 55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville NSW 2204 AU Life Signs 1. Throughway for a lizard <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-95" title="life-signs_lizard-hole_2" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_lizard-hole_2.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_lizard-hole_2.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_lizard-hole_2-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> On the 2nd of March I made a first visit to 55 Sydenham Rd. We sat in the space and had a long chat about the effort that went into renovating and constructing the studios and gallery, what kind of work we were doing when we were both in the M.H Franks Upholstery building studios in Camperdown back in the Nineties and the increasing drift of artist-run spaces out to Marrickville. We reflected on the disquieting role of artist-run initiatives in the gentrification of neighbourhoods – triggering the urban change that ultimately displaces artists and other poorer locals. Looking around the room for points of interest, I found a small hole passing right through the concrete floor to the level below. It was described how during the months of building work a lizard was seen coming up through this hole, crossing the room and under the wall to another part of the building. A hole in the new gallery wall temporarily restores the potential passage of a lizard across the upper floor of an industrial warehouse building in Marrickville. 2. Pot plants for the studios <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99" title="life-signs_geranium" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_geranium.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_geranium.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/life-signs_geranium-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> For the duration of the exhibition, a pot plant was placed on the sunny windowsill of each of the three artist studios adjacent to the gallery. Tended to by the tenants, their wellbeing became a measure of the life of the studios. week one week two week three 3. Stray cats on Shirlow St <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-111" title="week-one_shirlow-st" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/week-one_shirlow-st.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/week-one_shirlow-st.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/week-one_shirlow-st-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> Shirlow St is the next cross street on Sydenham Rd and I recognised the name, having read about a colony of cats on this street on a local artistâ€ s blog. Throughout the show I spent time looking for signs of cats and returning observations of the surrounding streets back to the gallery. week one Riding in daylight down Shirlow St to the dead end and walkway through the industrial estate, where I think there should be cats. Surprised by a sandstone-walled reservoir alongside the railway line. No cats. week two Taking a photo of the side of 47 Sydenham Rd and from the corner of my eye seeing my first cat slither down a drain in the daylight. Heading down Shirlow St after dark with a box of Friskies and laying down piles to see if they’d be eaten. Noticing two cats crouching at the back entrance of number 47 and the way the camera perceives the cat’s eyes. Taking photos and again a black cat slinks into my peripheral vision, low to the ground, and warily eats the food. Another waits under a bench. Seeing a woman feeding the two cats waiting at the back of number 47. Night cats. week three Visiting the end of Shirlow St in the afternoon and no sign of cats. Riding back after dark and a pair come galloping towards me from down the road, seeming familiar with a figure on a bike. They prowl around, tails up, expecting food. Returning to the gallery to get the box of Friskies. Coming back they remain aloof and disinterested in me. Smart cats. Cat photo notes returned to the gallery each week and afterthoughts – I only ever saw pairs of cats. Conversations with exhibition visitors confirmed sightings of larger numbers, particularly around the food processing factories and towards Marrickville Metro shopping centre. Reports of being approached by cats while riding through these streets at night continued to pop up after the duration of the exhibition. Thankyou: Iakovos Amperidis, Raquel Ormella and Nick Strike.
| 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. | […]
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/macadamias.jpg" alt="" title="macadamias" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-83" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/macadamias.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/macadamias-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> | 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. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_parra-rd.jpg" alt="" title="mulberry_parra-rd" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-84" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_parra-rd.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_parra-rd-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_planted.jpg" alt="" title="mulberry_planted" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-85" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_planted.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mulberry_planted-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> | 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. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mushroom_leaf-litter.jpg" alt="" title="mushroom_leaf-litter" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mushroom_leaf-litter.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mushroom_leaf-litter-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> | 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
photo: Lucas Ihlein Moving the steel tree guards made for The Lively Plane (continued) over to the Tending garden for a second life as supports for climbers. photo: Lucas Ihlein Positioning the frames around the three palm trees in the SCA courtyard and noticing surprisingly old initials and dates carved into two of the trunks […]
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames-to-tending.jpg" alt="" title="tree-frames-to-tending" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-78" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames-to-tending.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames-to-tending-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames_palm.jpg" alt="" title="tree-frames_palm" width="500" height="375" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-79" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames_palm.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tree-frames_palm-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_tree-frames_lucas.jpg" alt="" title="tending_tree-frames_lucas" width="500" height="333" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-80" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_tree-frames_lucas.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_tree-frames_lucas-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> photo: Lucas Ihlein Moving the steel tree guards made for The Lively Plane (continued) over to the Tending garden for a second life as supports for climbers. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_palm_graff-1.jpg" alt="" title="tending_palm_graff-1" width="500" height="333" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-81" srcset="http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_palm_graff-1.jpg 500w, http://www.studiononstop.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tending_palm_graff-1-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /> photo: Lucas Ihlein Positioning the frames around the three palm trees in the SCA courtyard and noticing surprisingly old initials and dates carved into two of the trunks – W.L. 19-1-44, W.L. 11-10-46, D.M. 1-12-44, among others.
One year off. Field left Fallow Some notes on a year off art practice. January – December 2010
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK FOUR NOTES. | 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 […]
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK FOUR NOTES. | 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. | Making notes on conversations with passers-by, more frequent now as the interior of the space becomes visible to the street. ‘Friendly man with a beer in a stubby holder stops in doorway to ask “What’s it going to become this time?” Says that it used to be a milk bar. I say it’s been an art gallery for a few years and will soon be an artists studio. Ask if he remembers it as a milk bar. “Oh yeah”. He’s lived in Brunswick for 23 years, but misses where he’s from in Port Melbourne. Says again that he was just interested to know what it was going to become, wishes me a good day and walks on.’ ‘African man walking by stops and smiles and asks what I’m making. I say I don’t know…have been working in the space and the main thing I’m doing is taking the paint off the windows. Ask if he’s ever been in here before. He says no, but that he’d wondered why they were making it dark inside. I say I’d wondered that too. He says he wondered if there was a secret gallery in there. I say yes, that’s a good way to put it – it’s a secret gallery. He says “So you are taking the paint off, but it is still a secret gallery?” I laugh and say yes. He asks my name, shakes my hand, says his is Kobiar. Pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you. Ciao.’ | Sending and receiving mail at the Lab. Amending the gallery door note to pop out on the bike looking for a post box, realising my visual cue is the colour red. | After slow, daily progress, completing the window stripping. | Noticing the many milk bars, dead and alive, in the streets around the Lab. | The clover’s progress. | Picking up a broom for the gallery. My mum’s sisters come to visit and it gets put to use. Just after they arrive a girl walks in and looks around. I say hi, she asks if I’m renovating and if this is going to be an artist-run space? I say yes it is one, has been for a few years. She introduces herself as Jenna. Says she noticed the place and came in to have a sticky beak, that it looked welcoming. I say I’m pleased it felt that way, that that was my aim by stripping the windows. She says goodbye, that she’s got a train to catch. Earlier, while I’m sitting at the table, a young guys pulls up on a bike. Says “Oh, I thought it was a shop?” I say “It’s kind of a shop…” He says “What do you sell?” I pause and say “I can give you a cup of tea?” He says “Nah”. I hop up and explain it’s an artist-run gallery, but a bit of a secret one, so I’ve been stripping the windows to make it more visible from the street and to let natural light in. He says natural light is good. That he lives nearby but only noticed the place as the windows have been stripped. Says he’ll have to stop by and see an exhibition. | Recording the many loquat trees in the area. The fruit ripening now in the warmer weather as the month closes, in one month’s delay to loquat season in Sydney. | At breakfast on Friday morning I hear a big knock and see something trying to come under the door at home. Open up and it’s my postman! We both gasp in surprise. I say you’re always bringing me things, and did he recognise my name? He gives me a ‘get real’ look and I say “Oh, you deliver a lot of letters”. He goes to wish me a good day and I say I might see him later at the Lab, but he says no, I won’t – that’s he’s not doing extra hours today. I say I won’t see him then, because next week I’m going home to Sydney. He says “Oh, forever?” and I say I’ve just been visiting. He says he hopes all nice things happen to me. I say I’ve enjoyed our chats and his visits, and that he’s always surprising me. He says I surprised him too! As he gets on his bike I ask his name. “Sam”. “Ciao Sam!” Waves goodbye and rides off towards Sydney Rd on Albion St. | Making a poster image of the heap for the back area of the Lab to link the toilet and compost sites. | Picking the red flowers in bloom in local street plantings. | Cleaning the windows and noticing the profusion of small insects that have accumulated on the stripped glass. Sweeping up a month of dust. | A passing thought, unrealised: to ask permission to access the top floor of the nearby Grandview Hotel, to appreciate and photograph the view. | Picking loquats for the closing afternoon gathering. Noticing the spatial habits of regular Lab visitors, who congregate in the back to smoke, drink and chat. Encouraging a shift of emphasis to the front with chairs and open doors. Spiros, Bianca and Thea come up with an interpretation of my use of the space as a body – where the windows are eyes, the door a mouth, my desktop the brain and the humanure loo an anus. | Four week old clover. | Appreciating the clear view through the windows, from outside and in. The clear visibility into the space is well illustrated when to my surprise, while standing at the back of the room photographing, two guys in a passing car stop, wind down their window and engage with me… | Adding the last bucket of toilet material with shells, seeds, skins and flowers from the Lab to the compost pile, along with more kitchen scraps, weeds and the clover too. | The heap and the path as I left them, along with instructions to the residents that the compost will be ready to use in December 2010. | UNREAD BOOKS: Rock the Boat: Localized Ethics, the Situated Self, and Particularism in Contemporary Art Tere Vaden & Mika Hannula Salon Verlag, Cologne 2003 Common-sense compost making by the quick return method Maye E. Bruce Faber and Faber, London 1948 The One Straw Revolution Masanobu Fukuoka Other India Press edition 2004 | A notebook full of notes and a gift for my host. THE END. RESOURCES Humble Pile, a nutrient recovery project by Nance Klehm The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins WITH THANKS To my many hosts and helpers…Sandra Bridie, Tom Nicholson, Clare Land, Julie Davies, Alex Rizkalla, Ocular Lab, Thea Rechner, Lucas Ihlein, Josie Cavallaro, Anne Kay, Bianca Hester, Kylie Wilkinson, John Najjar Furniture Forever.
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK THREE NOTES. | 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. | […]
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK THREE NOTES. | 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. | Leafing through the collection of publications and files on the shelf in the passage outside the kitchen. Paying attention to Ocular Lab’s self-description statements (from publications in 2005 & 2007), and noticing the shifts in inflection from writer to writer. Thinking of peripheral details – that the shopfront was formerly a milk bar, run by Mrs Vignoli, who still lives in the house adjoining. That the room was used as a private artists studio, before it shifted back to a public space as a gallery. That Ocular Lab is nearing its end and will return to being a private studio after March next year. From 2003-2006 a record of projects at the Lab was kept in file folders, including exhibition details, images and statements. In the back catalogue I notice an image of the rectangle stripped in the paint by Julie Davies to show a small screen in the Pearson St window. And an image showing the former gallery signage and street number on the glass over the doorway. | Continuing to strip the paint from the windows, this week using a fragrant citrus based product. Noticing the traces of the former Lab window interventions I’ve been told about – the 5cm frame cut all around the edge of each pane by Bill Seeto, a 20 cent coin sized periscope hole by Sean Loughrey and the rectangle to reveal a screen by Julie Davies. Finding layers of colour beneath the white, including red and black used in previous shows by Alex Rizkalla. Steadily obliterating this material record. | Picking some of the bottle-brushes that were in a blaze all along Pearson and Albert St’s. Aware that the colour red has been waving at me like a flag here – red blankets, a red rose, red rubber gloves, red everywhere. | The progress of clover, indoors and out. | By week three I’d become attuned to the sound of the postie’s motorbike approaching around the same time each afternoon. One day I stood in the doorway, thinking to record his passing as a blur of fluorescent orange. But he stopped – for me! | A card from my friend Lucy, with news of her garden and our workplace. The arrival of post, personally addressed and received, was pleasing testament to my being “in residence”. | Eating lunch in the streetscape. On the rock, on the footpath. | The rose’s progress. | As the view to the street from within the Lab became wider, I started to enjoy the corner panorama effect. Particularly the unwieldy passage of large trucks around, or over, the roundabout. Noticing again, from the conversation with Alex, how the roundabout is designed to be mounted by the supermarket trucks on their way to Sydney Rd. And the way that sometimes, as with this one, a truck would pass by in one direction and back in the other soon after – completing the turn in two stages. | Noticing how many roses are planted in the front gardens of Brunswick. Taking note of blooms and two street names on my route home from the Lab. | Wiping down the handbasin and putting out soap. Cleaning the loo. Doing the dishes. | Taping up printouts of the blog notes on the red panel in the hallway, where they catch passing air. | Preparing the room and table with Sandie for the Friday night dinner and talk. Friends and Lab members arrive in the last of the day’s light. I introduce my practice and THE LAB via a project from this time last year, THE__HALL. Dips and bread by Julie, a tomato soup with pasta, rosemary and lemon by Sandie, and Lebanese pastries and fruit from Sydney Rd. With a red slide, the data projector became a room softening light source, along with household lamps brought in by Kylie and Bianca. Blankets became a bed for a cold body needing rest. | Arriving on Saturday and noticing balloons tied to the telegraph pole on the corner with a handmade garage sale sign. The ways people draw attention in the streetscape. The day was windy, and their movement against the pole an echo of the flutterings Thea had been observing in Sydney. Midway through a conversation that day I looked and noticed the red balloon had popped. By the end of the day, both had. | Noting the light shape cast by the building facade from three different vantage points – standing on Mrs Vignoli’s front fence, on the rock and in the tree. | Making a day bed for my own tired body. | Receiving visitors, like Lauren, author of She Sees Red. We pass an hour or two sitting, drinking tea and chatting – about how we know our mutual friend Lucas, our mutual compulsion to document and how to find restraint and balance and the Melbourne Laneways project, which sparks a rambly musing on light. I’m keen to see Geoff Robinson’s current laneway project that reflects and reorients sunlight. Lauren connects this to the ray of light designed to beam into Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance at exactly 11:00am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month – or 12 midday these days, thanks to daylight savings. I wonder if that is in effect an oculus, and think back to my experience of the Pantheon in Rome. We continue on the daylight savings theme, likening it to a kind of time warping and pondering the repeated referendums held in WA and QLD that have returned a resounding “NO” to its institution in those states. We try to think of the reasons why – agricultural we figure – and find they’re a little beyond our inner-city, coastal frames of reference. | Sightings of fellow field workers. A young woman shooting video of the roundabout, and then seeming to follow a bird hopping along the road – which she caught, wrapped up and carried away. Soon after, a young man standing on the roundabout, waiting for something or someone and checking his phone. | Sun signs. | Sitting on the rock and looking up. Registering the grid of power lines and their intersection with the facade. | Heightened layering of vision and reflection in the Lab windows. READING: FIELDWORK Edited and Co-Produced by Jacob Bee, Ronald Boer, Valerie Dempsey, Erin Gleason, Florian Graf, Naomi Hennig, Melissa MacRobert, Julia Martin and Christine Wylie. Consulting editor Dr. Clementine Deliss Published by A/S/N Mutual Press, 2009 from THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF A PROGRAMME Eelco Hootfman ‘A/S/N When you are given a brief as a landscape architect, how do you engage with it in terms of fieldwork? EH Being a landscape architect is completely intertwined with the idea of having a site. I like the term field, because it’s neutral. It doesn’t have a particular dimension attached to it. As an entity, field seems to indicate a boundary around a set of operations, otherwise where would it start, where would it stop? Fieldwork is not a word I would normally use. I would probably refer to site analysis. For a landscape architect, regardless of the style you proclaim, the most important issue is that the product comes out of a particular place. I don’t think I would ever just take a product to a place. Some artists do, so that’s not a criticism. The Land Art movement got out of the gallery in that way and some of the best writings on the subject are by Robert Smithson. He had inspirational ways of seeing a landscape. Whenever I go for a job interview, I visit the site first. The site is where it all starts. That is our ethos.’ p.27 | At the end of a long day stripping windows and no visitors, two people from the most consistent artist-run initiative visitor demographic dropped in – fellow artists with upcoming shows at the gallery. They’d presumed that no one would be there, and as I tidied up and prepared to leave I could hear plans being made to black out the space and the question: “So what do you do about lighting?”. “…Spots…” RESOURCES Humble Pile, a nutrient recovery project by Nance Klehm The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins WITH THANKS To my many hosts and helpers…Sandra Bridie, Tom Nicholson, Clare Land, Julie Davies, Alex Rizkalla, Ocular Lab, Thea Rechner, Lucas Ihlein, Josie Cavallaro, Anne Kay, Bianca Hester, Kylie Wilkinson, John Najjar Furniture Forever.
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK TWO NOTES. | Clover seeds pushing up through soil and sprouting. | The red rose Bianca brought on my first day, opening and changing. READING: The Mind of Clover Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics Robert Aitken North Point Press, 1984 ‘You and I come forth […]
THE LAB Open residency project Ocular Lab West Brunswick WEEK TWO NOTES. | Clover seeds pushing up through soil and sprouting. | The red rose Bianca brought on my first day, opening and changing. READING: The Mind of Clover Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics Robert Aitken North Point Press, 1984 ‘You and I come forth as possibilities of essential nature, alone and independent as stars, yet reflecting and being reflected by all things. My life and yours are the unfolding realization of total aloneness and total intimacy. The self is completely autonomous, yet exists only in resonance with all other selves.’ p.13 | Finishing the curtain for the humanure loo, offering a breezy nod to modesty and a counterpoint to the boxy confines of the flushing toilet. The organic waste from week one at the Lab combined with bucket contents and biked back to the heap site. | Handmade signs on Union St and a great example of computer-free font making, which I’d been thinking about. | This week was extraordinarily cold, with frequent heavy downpours. The roof started leaking in correspondence with the stains and shapes on the floor. Observing where water enters the room under heavy rain, catching the two major drips in glasses. This proved useful when the builder who’s been engaged to repair the ceiling wandered in to sight the job, asking where the main leaks were. Water drawing on the floor as it finds the lowest level. READING: The Humanure Handbook: a guide to composting human manure Joseph Jenkins 2005, 3rd edition ‘Feces and urine are examples of natural, beneficial, organic materials excreted by the bodies of animals after completing their digestive processes. They are only “waste” when we discard them. When recycled, they are resources, and are often referred to as manures, but never as waste, by the people who do the recycling. We do not recycle waste. It’s a common semantic error to say that waste is, can be, or should be recycled. Resource materials are recycled, but waste is never recycled. That’s why it’s called “waste”. Waste is any material that is discarded and has no further use. We humans have been so wasteful for so long that the concept of waste elimination is foreign to us. Yet, it is an important concept. When a potato is peeled, the peels aren’t kitchen waste – they’re still potato peels. When they’re collected for composting, they are being recycled and no waste is produced. Composting professionals sometimes refer to recycled materials as “waste”. Many of the people who are developing municipal composting programs came from the waste management field, a field in which refuse has always been termed “waste”. Today, however, the use of the term “waste” to describe recycled materials is an unpleasant semantic habit that must be abandoned.’ pp. 7-8 | Elaborating on an existing Lab sign with the gallery’s red dot stickers. | Two days in a row the postie stuck his head in to ask me what number the Lab was, 31 or 33? Improvising a street number with stickers over the doorway to make it clear. | Walking in the laneways around the second site to find materials for the walls of the humanure compost heap. Finding a sunny discreet spot, clearing ground, rigging it up and laying down the first layers of kitchen scraps and bucket contents with surplus straw and weeds from Kylie’s brain garden. READING: The Humanure Handbook: a guide to composting human manure Joseph Jenkins 2005, 3rd edition ‘Shortly after I published the first edition of this book, I was invited to speak to a group of nuns at a convent… It was Earth Day, 1995. The presentation went well. After I spoke, the group showed slides of their gardens and compost piles, then we toured their compost area and poked around in the worm boxes. A delightful lunch followed, during which I asked them why they were interested in humanure, of all things. “We are the Sisters of Humility,” they responded. “The words ‘humble’ and ‘humus’ come from the same semantic root, which means ‘earth’. We also think these words are related to the word ‘human’. Therefore, as part of our vow of humility, we work with the earth. We make compost, as you’ve seen. And now we want to learn to make compost from our toilet material.”…This was deep shit. Profound. A light bulb went off in my head. Of course, composting is an act of humility… The exercising of the human spirit can take many forms, and the simple act of cleaning up after oneself is one of them.’ pp. 69-70 | My key to the Lab must be a copy of countless generations of copies, and it continued to be tricky to get the door open as I arrived each day. Sometimes it took ten minutes of jiggling, jostling, rising frustration and absurdity. Until Alex dropped in one day and demonstrated the knack of downward pressure on the lower edge and I got the feel for it. | Starting the process of stripping the paint from the Pearson and Albert St window panes. Finding a rhythm of applying stripper, scraping, sweeping and cleaning each day. Working with care on the Albert St window and sensitive to the movement of the glass due to the deteriorated upper timber brace. Realising I’ve been trusted to work with the window when it’s a bit risky to do so. Thinking about who cleans and cares for spaces like these, and the work by Julie Davies a few people have mentioned to me, in which she documented artists de-installing their work at the Lab and returning the room to the condition they found it. | Thinking about the repertoire of tools and kitchen things and cleaning products common to artist-run initiatives – what’s required to maintain a room and the bodies that occupy it. | The nearest living things – a banksia and piece of bush rock in the Pearson St verge planting, and the eucalypt gracing the centre of the roundabout. Standing in the street chatting to Alex about the history of car racing and accidents on the street, roundabout and verge design, we came to notice that the tree is crowned with red blossoms and just on the brink of flowering. READING: How to Cook Your Life From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment Zen Master Dogen and Kosho Uchiyama Roshi Translated by Thomas Wright Shambhala, 2005 ‘It is written in the Chanyuan Qinggui that “the function of the tenzo is to manage meals for the monks”… I shall now take up the work of the tenzo covering a period of one complete day. After the noon meal the tenzo should go to the tsusu and kansu to get the rice, vegetables and other ingredients for the following morning and noon meals. Once he has these, he must handle them as carefully as if they were his own eyes. Renyong of Baoneng said, “Use the property and possessions of the community as carefully as if they were your own eyes.” ‘ pp. 3-4 | Observing the piles of mostly unopened mail gathering here and there around the Lab. Mindful of the habit of galleries to send their printed invites and programs to other galleries, and that in this instance they go unreceived. The Lab has no noticeboard or space provided for ephemera, and a whole lot of postage and colour printing lingers then goes straight into the recycling. | Arriving on Saturday, a real estate agent showing a house on Albert St had placed a snappy ‘Open’ sign on the corner opposite the Lab. As I played with moving the sign and pointing it towards the gallery, a car promptly pulled up. By the time the woman reached me, she thought to ask if I was an artist taking a photo of the sign, or was this property open? Because she was looking to buy a shopfront. I explained I was mucking around with the sign, and was open, but she turned straight back to her car a little crossly, saying that it was a “little bit deceptive”. Not long after a friendly young agent in an enormous Audi pulled up and collected the sign. Two more houses were open for viewing on the street over the weekend, and attention drawn with red flags and signs placed prominently on the roundabout. | Archetypal ARI note on the door when I need to duck out. | A first glimpse of the milky layered vision created by heightened reflections on the window glass as I strip it. Seeing through, behind and beyond the room, its contents and surrounds. RESOURCES Humble Pile, a nutrient recovery project by Nance Klehm The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins WITH THANKS To my many hosts and helpers…Sandra Bridie, Tom Nicholson, Clare Land, Julie Davies, Alex Rizkalla, Ocular Lab, Thea Rechner, Lucas Ihlein, Josie Cavallaro, Anne Kay, Bianca Hester, Kylie Wilkinson, John Najjar Furniture Forever.