As part of being an intern, we have to do a lot of random things, including helping to put out chairs for artists talks. Now carrying 70 chairs from one level to another and setting them out, and then taking them back upstairs, is not the most exciting thing in the world, nor is it great for your back! However, we did get to sit and listen to the talk and that is one of the bonuses of this job.
David Elliot was chatting to Newell Harry, Mikela Dwyer and Warren Fahey about their practice and their specific works for this year's Biennale. It was a chance to hear Elliot speak for the first time (and he's good to listen to, a pretty switched on bloke!) and to learn a little more about a couple of the artists. Helpful, as eventually, I will need to be leading tours around these artworks!
For me, the most interesting part of the talk was the discussion about invoking the spirits of Cockatoo Island. Fahey, a musicologist and collector of folk music (a connection to Harry Everett Smith, the patron saint of the BoS, who was, among other things, also a musicologist and collector of folk music!) is collating the ballads of people who would have worked on the island. By playing the music alongside images of those same people, he hopes to give the audience almost a presence of those lost souls. But Dwyer is hoping for a step further. She is hoping to actually call forth the ghosts of those lost souls. By playing a soundtrack of someone chipping away at sandstone blocks (one of the main activities on the island), she hopes that the ghosts will remember the sound and that their spirits will return to the Island.
Now this sounds a bit wacky, but the idea is kinda fun, pretty different, and imagine if it worked......
Hi Kate
ReplyDeleteSounds a really great internship. I like the way you revealed where you are doing the internship. I disguised my internship placement as we were requested to do so. Not sure why. I guess anyone can work it out. Seems all very secretive on our blogging especially that they are private blogs. I may reveal all soon.
I have heard David Elliot speak and he is good.
I was wondering about the chinking and hammer sounds on Cockatoo Island. I can just imagine those sounds. Are there any thoughts about the sounds and experiences of the original landowners and what thier experiences may have been?.
Rodney Swan
Hi Rodney
ReplyDeleteI think it was an option to disguise your place of internship, but I thought it would be quite obvious where I was working, so why not just say so! And it means people can more easily comment on my blog.
It is an interesting question regarding the original landowners - I am not sure what their sounds would be, it is certainly something to think about. David Elliot has been quite good in including any and all artists - as he quotes regularly "All music is folk music, I ain't never heard a horse sing a song" (Louis Armstrong) so art from the Indigenous community is strongly represented in the exhibition and is equally regarded alongside the other artists. But I will look out for anything specific to Cockatoo Island!
Cockatoo island is such an amazing place. It's so perfect for the biennale. And its really great that because of the biennale Sydneysiders are rediscovering a little bit of Sydney's history. It is a great example how the arts can 'give back'to a city.
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