Helen Robertson
hanging in the balance
2-12 March 2023
open: Friday - Sunday 12-6pm
and by appointment
preview: Thursday 2 March 6-9pm
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hanging in the balance
treading on a forest green aerial view // soft furnishing satellite pictures of the Amazon rainforest // carbon capture statistics // 6.5 kilos of yarn //
feet push downwards into earth // pressing wet clay against steel // now fired matt black //
cast iron pipes transport water through air // words lose density// writing a black liquid pool //
the forgetting of air // inhale and exhale footfalls across the floor // breath and voice // bouncing off walls // the horizon in the balance //
Using the gallery architecture as a fulcrum hanging in the balance works reflexively with movement through and around the exhibition space to involve visitors in a sensorial engagement with ideas of breath, earth and political protest.
Through a series of related floor-based works; a tufted carpet tailored to fit the entrance corridor, a poured painting and a foot-thrown pot made in collaboration with ceramicist Yuta Segawa attention is brought to ground and feet transforming the gallery floor into a painterly field.
The exhibition includes a video work developed with dancers (Antoinette Brooks-Daw, former premier dancer Northern Ballet and Daisy West), non-dancers and a musician in which danced movement is intercut with gestures of protest and the intermittent call of a solo oboe.
The installation is part of an ongoing body of work related to women and architecture but in this instance architecture and space are used to reflect on ecological relations.
Credits
With special thanks to performers Antoinette Brooks-Daw, Daisy West, Yujie Duan, Yocheved Francis, Julia-Anna Simonchuk, Anastasiia Tikhonova, musician Amy Roberts and ceramist Yuta Segawa
Text based intervention combines fragments from The Promise of Politics and The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt and For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression by Adriana Cavarero
A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL
W.H.Y. (ZARA TRUSS GILES)
SOLO SHOW / PRESS RELEASE
MUTTON FIST PRESS RESIDENCY: W.H.Y. - Zara Truss-Giles
During their yearlong residency at Mutton Fist Press, W.H.Y. will be learning how to apply modulated synthesiser electronics engineering practices to silkscreen and other printing techniques, with a goal to produce playable sonic/ audio prints. This process is a nod to the artist's Jamaican heritage; looking at soundsystem culture and histories. The project also highlights the position of women and female identifying individuals in electronics engineering in relation to modular synthesisers and communication engineering