Antarctic ice works by Kirsten Haydon: Viewed 22 September 2023

Haydon, Kirsten. 2021. Ice Shadow. Mixed-media sculptural installation. Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

Haydon, Kirsten. 2022. Ice Draw. Mixed-media sculpture. Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Kirsten Haydon's Ice Shadow, 2023.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Kirsten Haydon's Ice Draw, 2023.

This post covers two works by Kirsten Haydon, also viewed on 22 September 2023 at the Wild Hopeexhibition. I note with a degree of envy (a definite affect) that both of Haydon’s works were made in response to her time as an Antarctica New Zealand Antarctic Arts Fellow.

The 2021 work Ice Shadow is a whimsical and poignant work, consisting of pendants in the form of silhouettes, representing 30 artefacts found by the artist in the Terra Nova hut of the doomed explorer Robert Scott. The shapes were traced from Haydon’s photographs and hand cut in steel. The side facing the viewer has been heat blackened, while the internal, wall facing side features a drawing of the nearby Barne Glacier, reflecting the precarity of human caused glacial retreat (IPCC 2023).

The private aspect of these talismanic shapes, shielding their inner meaning, suggest a type of cabinet of curiosity, drawing an admittedly tenuous link to the Rembrandt True to Life exhibition. The viewer could also read the blackened side as a reference to the eventual carbonization of Earth, unless we make radical changes.

The 2022 work Ice Draw is similarly symbolic. A perforated metal shelf unit coated with the image of the Barne Glacier. It could hold ice but not water. The artist notes that the Meccano-like structure references glacial melt. The viewer can infer the failure to date of our efforts to hold off global warming. The ice is also symbolic of the last ice age, when global temperatures were four to six degrees lower than now. Chillingly, the earth is expected to heat by an additional 4 to 6 degrees due to global warming, according to the geographer Lesley Head (Head 2016, Chapter 1).

These two works show me how imagination and high production values can be used to create innovative works that increase sensation and affect, and hopefully contribute to a seismic shift in our response to global warming.

Bibliography:

• Head, Lesley. 2016. Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene : Re-Conceptualising Human-nature Relations. London: Taylor & Francis Group.

• IPCC. 2023. 2023: Summary for Policymakers. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC).

The benefits of assisted technology in the work of Marc Gibson: Viewed 22 September 2023

Gibson, Marc. 2023. Painterly Forms. Sculpture. Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Marc Gibson's Painterly Forms, Overall installation. 2023.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Marc Gibson's Painterly Forms, One sculpture as an example. 2023.

This post is about another body of work that interested me at the Wild Hope exhibition, seen on 22 September 2023. As his project overview explains, Marc Gibson has used technology designed to simulate aquatic flows and formations, and integrated these algorithms into his 3D printing process, as a form of symbiosis. The artist’s objective was to demonstrate the benefits of integrating human and technical endeavours, in part to mitigate public concern about artificial intelligence.

While I appreciate the innovative approach to production, I am most interested in the output, the coral and sea sponge like shapes printed in polymer resin and plastic and coated in rubber. This resonates with my interest in the coral based/sea life work of Nicholas Mangan (e.g., Core coralations and Death assemblage 2023) and Vera Moller (e.g., Verdana no. 2 2023), each the subject of earlier posts).

I have not yet explored 3D printing but can see great potential for my pattern based multiples. I note the irony that Gibson’s work uses resins and potentially petrochemical plastics, the type eliminated by French in her work. I wonder if algae based plastics can be used in 3D printing.

Hope when we need it most, the work of Jessie French: Viewed 22 September 2023

French, Jessie. 2023. To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Paintings in algae-based plastic. Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Jessie French's paintings To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. View 1, 2023.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Jessie French's paintings To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. View 2, 2023.

I visited the Wild Hope exhibition on 22 September 2023. The Wild Hope exhibition seeks to demonstrate through art and exhibition technology and materials that we can adopt sustainable frameworks. Its goal is to act as a catalyst for regenerative change.

The work of three artists in particular stood out for me, from over twenty works.

This post concerns the first of these, Jessie French and her work To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind 2023. This work consists of six abstract paintings in algae based plastic, suspended from the ceiling, with each periodically lowered or raised, seemingly at random by a mechanical support. The algae-based plastics are an intentional alternative to harmful petrochemcical based plastics. French’s use of these algae-based plastics extends to the signage for the entire exhibition, with algae-based labels printed on waste or recycled board and wood.

The six paintings are in a variety of colours. Naturally I was attracted to the most subdued green/blue work, which resembled kelp floating in the deep sea, reinforced by the swaying motion and silent vertical motion of the panel, creating the percept of tidal flows (Hickey-Moody 2013, 85-86). After the visit, while researching artists for Studio 2, I also realised that Jessie French contributes to the Seaweed Appreciation Society International ((SASi) 2023).

French’s method of hanging installation resonates with me, as evident through earlier posts about suspended works (for example, Vera Moller’s Verdana no. 2 and Takahiro Iwasaki’s Reflection Model (Itsukushima). I am exploring vertical hanging formats in my last Studio 2 project, as shown by the following photograph of a test installation.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of her suspended works from her Precarious Times test installation, 2023.

The final affect of the installation was to prompt me to consider anew the need to be more environmentally conscious in my practice.

Bibliography:

• Hickey-Moody, Anna. 2013. "Chapter 4 Affect as Method: Feelings, Aesthetics ad Affective Pedagogy." In Deleuze and research methodologies edited by Rebecca Coleman and Jessica Ringrose, 79-95. Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, United Kingdom).

• (SASi), Seaweed Appreciation Society international. 2023. "Contributors." https://www.seaweedappreciationsociety.com.