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Vičnaja Pamjat: Memory Everlasting

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Vičnaja Pamjat: Memory Everlasting Vičnaja Pamjat: Memory Everlasting Virginia Mawer This thesis is a fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts School of Art College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales March 2014 1 2 3 7 Table of contents Acknowledgements 5 List of images 6 Originality Statement 7 Abstract 8 Preface 10 Introduction 11 Chapter One - Vulnerability: Making and Unmaking 14 - Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of an ethics of shared vulnerability - She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-2014 - Ann Hamilton and fragile materiality Chapter Two - The Vulnerable Body 31 - Goodnight, Wherever You Are, 2013-2014 - Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-2014 -Water and transcendence -Family histories -Martha McDonald’s Weeping Dress, 2011 -Bill Viola, spirituality and Water -Astrida Neimanis’ Thinking with Water Chapter Three - The Vulnerable Word 50 -Luce Irigaray’s Marine Lover of Fredrich Nietzshe - Acquiescence, 2014 -Eugenia Raskopoulos, Words are Not Hard, 2006 -Liminal, 2014 -Song Dong’s Writing Diary with Water, 1995 and Printing with Water, 1996 Conclusion 61 Bibliography 62 4 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the support of the following people, and they have my undying gratitude: My saint of a supervisor, Sylvia Ross, who always believes in me. Always. Emma, Mike, Amy and Scott, for help and support over and above the call of duty. Ruth Hadlow, for helping me see more about my process and teaching me to think and for her generous insights about creative practice. My fabulous friends and colleagues in research at the university. Here’s to Bettina, Bernie, Yiwon, Susannah, Catherine, Dom, Neil, Rachel and Lauren. Thanks for the cups of coffee and sharing your knowledge and friendship. My faithful film crew, Mark Tipple, Josh Mawer, Ben Draisma, Garth Hodgson, Susan Hawthorne, Stephanie Drummond, Leanne Paris, Chelsea Thompson and Susan Hawkins. A million thanks. My Tool Room Heroes, and especially Jim, who made my time at COFA far better than it would otherwise have been. The lecturers who have supported my work and offered critical engagement: Gary Carsley, Kerry Thomas, Peter Sharp and Martin Simms. My dear friends Jackie, Kate, Claire, Silvia, for late night phone calls, cups of tea and sympathy. You kept me sane…sort of. To my Lo-hovely Lee-heesa and ever-enthusiastic Michele, for unending love and support. To my family for getting me to this point. Thank you. 5 List of Images 1. ‘Oh!’ from the series She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-14 2. ‘In trouble’ from the series She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-14 3. ‘All that was left’ from the series She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-14 4. ‘Bye’ from the series She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-14 5. ‘Yeah’ from the series She Never Told and Other Stories, 2012-14 6. Ann Hamilton, Kaph, 1999 7. Ann Hamilton, Whitecloth 1999 8. Ann Hamilton, Myein 1999 9. Goodnight, Wherever You Are, 2013-2014, video still 10. Goodnight, Wherever You Are, 2013-2014, video still 11. Goodnight, Wherever You Are, 2013-2014, video still 12. Felix Gonzales-Torres, Untitled, Billboard, 1991 13. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14, digital photograph 14. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14, video still 15. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14 video still 16. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14 video still 17. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14 video still 18. Vičnaja Pamjat, 2013-14 video still 19. Photograph of my grandmother’s baptism, 4/8/1948, family archive. 20. Martha McDonald, The Weeping Dress, 2011 21. Bill Viola, The Messenger, 1996 22. Acquiescence, 2014, digital photograph 23. Eugenia Raskoloulos, Words are not Hard, 2006, video still 24. Liminal, 2014, video still 25. Song Dong, Writing Diary with Water, 1995 (ongoing), performance still Song Dong, Printing on water, 1996, digital photograph 6 Abstract Vičnaja Pamjat: Memory Everlasting comprises of a body of works investigating love and loss at an intersection between language, material practice, lived experience, film and voice. Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of shared vulnerability is examined in relation to the body, but also in terms of linguistic ambiguity, to consider constant change and metamorphosis as fundamental elements of life cycles. The universality of vulnerability is essentially a paradox; life-giving forces simultaneously cause decay. Applying the principle of making and unmaking, sculptural and video works explore the terrain of vulnerability through language and water. Using clothing and cloth that comes in contact with the skin, imbued with the weight of female lineage and tradition, I draw on highly personal and semi- autobiographic narratives to consider universal power relations and structures examined in feminist discourse. I look at material techniques of dissolving and removing support structures in order to further explore the concept of vulnerability. Water is used as a symbol, a material, a methodology and a stage to explore the body and language, particularly influenced by Astrida Nemanis’ theory of ‘thinking with water’. By reconsidering power relations through an investigation of nature, in this case, water, we can begin to form more expansive views on nature and gender. I argue that we, as humans, are not separate from water (as conventional Western philosophy purports) but rather are so greatly comprised of water that the boundaries between our internal and external selves start to ‘dissolve’. Drawing on parallels between water and language, I consider the fluidity of language as often destabilising due to the constant shifting of meaning, yet transformative in that it can facilitate the creation of new facets of ourselves or the regeneration of dormant parts. Thinking of language as ‘watery’ also describes the 8 inadequacies of communication and comprehension, whether they are issues of translation, exclusion, confusion, silence, capability or factors such as emotional distress, illness or trauma. Water and language are ways in which we can understand vulnerability and form new knowledge around relationships and equality. 9 Preface When we do come to see that there is no ultimate good, no ultimate reconciliation, we can begin to accept the fact that we are rather marvellous animals that emerged out of the soup of the universe, that the accident of life will someday vanish, but that the brief history that is ours is worth the ride, and hopefully for a while longer.1 George W. Harris I find this pragmatic statement strangely comforting when I am confronted with the transitory nature of existence. This paper addresses my investigations into this issue. We emerge and eventually recede back into the ‘soup of the universe’. I find that this coming and going has no ultimate reward, other than living the life we have. This process involves ever shifting ground, given that we change and everything changes around us. 1 George W. Harris, Reason's Grief : An Essay on Tragedy and Value(Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).p.26 10 Introduction My research for the Master of Fine Arts program investigates vulnerability in relation to gender, life cycles, water, language and materiality. Transformation is central to the idea of vulnerability. According to Simone de Beauvoir transformation is the principle that is common to all humans, regardless of gender, race, social class or any other hierarchical distinctions.2 Transformation constitutes any type of change and may include decay, absence and regeneration, which are all stages of human experience. There is a cyclical nature that we observe in the rising and setting of the sun, the seasons, the births and deaths of those around us, as well as the prospect of our own mortality. We are all susceptible to illness and eventually death, and it was this meditation that led me to explore vulnerabilities at an intersection of sculpture, film, voice and language. Chapter One looks at vulnerability through making and unmaking. This allowed me to consider natural processes of tidal patterns and life cycles, as well as disruptions to these systems. This enquiry included stitching and unpicking a series of handkerchiefs, challenging their structural integrity and seeing what would happen if their threads were removed. I found interesting parallels between decaying the handkerchiefs and decay of the body through illness and death. I look at the work of Ann Hamilton, who often uses fabric and textile techniques to explore absence and presence. Chapter Two explores transformation and transcendence of the body though water, using the ocean as a stage setting, a methodology, a metaphor and a material. If our origins, as evolutionary theory suggests, are in fact aquatic, then the idea of journeying below the surface of the water should seem like a return to the source. Beyond evolutionary metaphors, there are a multitude of historical, cultural and religious associations with water. Many of these refer to transition and 2 Simone de Beauvoir, Old Age(London: A. Deutsch; Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972). 11 transformation. As a symbol of flux, water is an ideal platform from which to explore existence itself, particularly transitions into the unknown. Drawing on a range of beliefs, water is often seen to represent a place from which life emerges and to which all life returns. It is associated with purification rituals. The water works of Bill Viola, for example, can be employed as a lens through which to examine the spiritual. In relation to spiritual reflections, I have explored transformation in my performance Vičnaja Pamjat (2013-14), which references personal history and loss through the re-birthing rite of baptism. Layers of a billowing white baptismal robe become translucent during immersion and the ‘cloth’ membrane that separates the self from the world becomes compromised. By accentuating the transformative nature of meaning through form (in this case, clothing), it is revealed that the self can be experienced as an ever changing process rather than a fixed entity.
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