Sounding

Sounding are abstract diptych collages made during a residency at LARQ (Land Art Residency Queenstown) in Tasmania and for the development of the installation Copper Ships exhibited at the Tin Sheds Gallery in 2010.

I cut and layered fragments of  – Japanese textiles, hi vis industrial clothing, blue prints of ship designs, printed textures of cloth – sourced from an abandoned house on the island of Teshima (Setouchi Art Triennial 2010) and the Mount Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown. The starting point was to combine the  floor plans of an abandoned  house on Teshima and a community hall in a once vibrant  hydro village near Queenstown. The  motifs that followed were based on everyday objects found on Teshima - the fishing net design, the persimmon, shogi or the Japanese sliding door, traditional woven baskets- and the molecular structure of copper the mineral mined and exported from Queenstown to Japan for ship building.

In my work soundings are taken of connections between people, places and objects. Sounding is a way of probing the environment by sending out a signal and receiving information in return. The term derives from the ancient practice of determining the depth of water by lowering a line weighted at the end.

These works map, wrap and weave concepts of identity, societies and their cultures, foreign threads strategically collected and selected for their beauty and testimonies, all are part of the visual webbing of stories, sites, memories and layered histories.

The work was exhibited at Mars Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. Sounding was acquired by Art Bank.