University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+ University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2019 Unpacking My Collection Newell Marcel Harry University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1 University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. 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For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Unpacking My Collection A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Doctor of Creative Arts UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by Newell Marcel Harry M.F.A. (UNSW), B.F.A. Hons. I (UNSW) Supervisors: Dr Susan Ballard and AProf Brogan Bunt School of the Arts, English & Media 2019 Newell Harry Unpacking My Collection ABSTRACT Artists’ notebooks, vernacular photographs and personal collections are often viewed as minor footnotes in exhibitions or in respect of their main oeuvres. Yet these personalised fragments are oftentimes more compelling than they at first seem, exposing an entangled web of threads and traces that intimately map the artist’s working processes, life experiences, doubts and digressions that are part and parcel of the creative act. Walter Benjamin took great inspiration from his personal collections, referring to his kaleidoscope of objets trouvés, notebooks, postcards and rare journals as a “magic encyclopedia”, while the anthropologist Michael Taussig, has described the notebook as a “slumbering repository”, itself a kind of ‘collection’ of fragments and threads that is activated like an “awakening bear” when recursively reread. It is this ‘slumbering repository’ of fragmented ‘relics’ that my practice-based Doctorate of Creative Arts explores through recursive engagement with my own collections: a nebulous mass of photographs, notebooks and objects itinerantly accrued across many geographical regions over the past two decades but only now revisited. To ‘unpack’ and revisit this material contrasts with a linear chain of artistic production, where the artist typically starts with an idea or notebook sketch, and, through a series of chronological steps, arrives at a completed work that is generally presented at a remove from the train of processes and external encounters that led to (and informed) its conclusion. It is precisely the inverse of this approach that forms the critical nub of this study, in which such interstitial fragments are seen not as a footnote to artistic production but as the ‘primary act’ of creation. The focus here is on what re-configuring and re-presenting this material might reveal. The project departs from three practical and theoretical questions: How might the processes of unpacking be engaged to recombine the elements of my collection as a method to create new works? How, historically, have other artists challenged singular exhibition practices through recursive, ‘non-linear’ processes, and what forms and/or devices have been employed to display or exhibit these materials? And what new ways of understanding ‘hybrid’ postcolonial narratives might subsequently emerge from this process? In developing a methodological practice more closely associated with improvisation and what I classify as a kind of ‘conceptual bricolage’, this Doctorate of Creative Arts project invokes reflexive, open-ended relationships to prompt new readings and tangents between the elements. Departing from a close examination of my own notebooks, travel journals and photographs, in the context of other artists’ notebooks and collecting practices, the project seeks to discover a new kind of nomadic, non-chronological approach to narrative, story-telling, exhibition-making, form, content and material. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I wish to dedicate this thesis to my late grandmother, Elizabeth ‘Lily’ Green (1923-2017), who passed away in the course of my undertaking this degree and had dearly hoped to be there at its completion. Secondly, I want to pay tribute to the late Nigerian curator, Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019), who sadly left us far too young. At Enwezor’s invitation in 2014, I had the honour to contribute to his 56th Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures (2015). Through Enwezor’s entrustment I had the privilege to produce an installation that would not only intersect with my earliest undertakings of this Doctorate of Creative Arts project, but would also emerge as a defining component within it. Enwezor not only remains a towering figure of inspiration to me–known for his challenging exhibitions that often provided a platform for culturally ‘neglected voices’–but was also an exemplary light among artists and curators of the African diaspora, such as myself. As an African-Australian, in retrospect of his passing, I find myself deeply indebted to his wisdom, courage and ardency of vision. Having said this, I must also give thanks to the institutions that have contributed to my project through invitations to partake in exhibitions, grants, acquisitions and residencies and/or to conduct research, including: The Centre for Contemporary Art, Nanyang Technological University (CCA NTU), Singapore; La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; the Australia Council for the Arts; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy (TBA 21 Academy), Vienna; Kolumba Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne, Cologne; Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporain, Tourcoing; Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art, Croatia; Pernod Ricard Foundation, Atelier Villa Vassilieff, Paris; and my Australian commercial representative, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Words of gratitude are also owed to my supervisor, Dr. Su Ballard, whose endearing support, insightful criticality and encouragement to push me through those challenging moments that inevitably arise have been invaluable. Finally, I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which this thesis was written, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, recognizing their continuing connection to Country, with respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. 5 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 7 BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE ........................................................................................ 17 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 19 1.1 Notes on the Written Style and Composition of the Thesis ............................................. 19 1.2 Unpacking my Collection: Background of the Project and Methodology ...................... 29 1.3 The Living Room of James and Lily Green: A Narrative ............................................... 34 1.4 Filling in the Gaps ................................................................................................................ 37 1.5 Artistic and Curatorial Allies ............................................................................................. 46 CHAPTER TWO: WORDS AND PICTURES .............................................................. 60 2.1 Chapter Overview: Words and Pictures ........................................................................... 60 2:2 An Interview with Jacinta Bělohradský: Known/Unknowns ........................................... 61 2.3 Words and Pictures/Pictures and Words .......................................................................... 81 2.4 Background Projects and Nomadic Methodologies .......................................................... 92 CHAPTER THREE: OBJECTS .................................................................................... 120 3.1 Objects: Collection and Circulation/Interior and Exterior Engagements ................... 130 3.2 Key Artists and Contextualisation ..................................................................................