2013
UN-MAKING (2013) is a collaborative installation between myself and Philippa Emery, and was first installed at RM gallery on Karangahape Road. The project includes drawings, a variety of plaster casts, slip cast ‘broken pins’, mangrove-like vases, three photographic prints, glass, and cardboard boxes (some with fabric covers as supports) for objects. The objects within UN-MAKING are installed in such as way as to provoke typological connections that are, in turn, frustrated through a lack of classification. This makes for an extended archive of connections. Within the installation five ceramic spheres are placed at different points around the gallery. These spheres can operate as waymarkers within the installation in the sense that they physically mark out the installation, potentially leading the viewer to look for them once a repeating pattern is observed. The object’s placement determins the rhythm at which they are revealed. Rhythm within the installation is disturbed by other interweaving waymarkers, creating a complex viewing experience. Adopting the language of the waymarker to provoke an ‘un-making’ where confusion and dislocation are major considerations in the work. Thus, serendipitous associations to colour, scale and support destabilise the logical typological structure. Accordingly, codes develop and disassemble. UN-MAKING marks a shift of focus within my practice from the narrative pursuit of a site or history towards a series of questions regarding subjective experience within an archive-as-installation.
