Discontinued Narratives of Migration and an Art Practice with Earth E. A. Day Doctorate of Creative Arts September 2011 UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY This paper is dedicated to my parents George and Margaret Day and to the land where we lived at Otago Bay, Tasmania. It is also for Beatrice, Claire and Violet. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Especially with thanks to the resources and support of the University of Western Sydney, Department of Writing and Society in the School of Communications. The funding from Writing and Society enabled me to attend the Glocal Imaginaries Conference in Manchester U.K in 2009 and also to return to in 2010 to exhibit at St Georges Hall, Liverpool. With huge thanks to Dr Anna Gibbs and Dr Noelene Lucas, my two supervisors whose guidance has been crucial in bringing together this work. Anna Gibbs has allowed me to be the writer I suspected I might be, by trusting that I could do it and allowing me to step into ficto-criticism and develop the relationship that existed between the writing and the artwork. Research has opened up new worlds. Noelene Lucas has also given exceptional support in demonstrating how a sculptor became a writer. Her assistance with the structuring of this document has been immeasurably helpful, and her thoroughness in going over my texts as I was writing has also been invaluable and really fundamental in my getting it together. I would also like to thank Casula Powerhouse who supported the Liverpool N.S.W. end of my exhibition, especially then Director, Nick Tsoutas who gave the project initial support back in 2007. Artist and curator, Paul Howard also worked with me to develop the initial proposal. Khaled Sabsabi and other staff at Casula whose work helped to make the large scale exhibition happen. Especially I want to thank Lillian Fong for her watering of my show day in and day out. Casula Powerhouse also have been supporting a further garden project in Liverpool, special thanks to Khaled Sabsabi for all the work he has done in supporting this work which will hopefully transpire when I have time to return to it. I also need to mention the Director of St Georges Hall in Liverpool UK, Alan Smith who from the start thought that Liverpool/Liverpool was a good idea for an exhibition. He allowed me to show in the Dickson Gallery at the same time as the Liverpool Biennial which brought many people in to see it. I also want to give thanks to Dr Ross Gibson at Sydney College of the Arts for letting me use their lawn by the library to grow the grass prints. Immeasurable thanks to Robert Lake who made that production seem plausible and great fun. Loma Bridge has been as ever a great person and friend with whom to discuss ideas, some of her thinking is in this work. I also want to thank Sarah Day, Ouyang Yu, Catherine Rey, Nasrin Matouchi for letting me use their words. I also want to thank my gallery Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Cologne/Sydney for the two exhibitions that I have had there during the course of the Doctorate. Dr Nola Farman must also be given special thanks for her assistance in the final editing of the document. Last but far from least I also want to thank my partner, Dr Alan Cholodenko whose advice and support has sustained and animated the lengthy commitment to working on a thesis over four years. I also want to thank friends who have put up with my complaints and neglect over this period ––especially towards the end. iii Table of Contents Title Page Page i Dedication Page Page ii Acknowledgements Page Page iii Statement of Authentication Table of Contents Page iv List of Works Page v Table of Illustrations Page Page v List of Appendices Page xiv Abstract Page Page xv Introduction Page 1 Chapter 1 Five Short Fictions Page 8 The Black (Mutation in Darkness) Page 8 Liverpool/Liverpool Page 26 A Point on a Network Page 32 Whatever you do don’t mention it. Page 43 Fact or Fiction? Page 52 Chapter 2 The Stranger Page 58 Chapter 3 Robert Smithson Page 84 Chapter 4 Illustrations and Commentaries on the Visual Work. Page 129 Chapter 5 History of the Doctoral Proposals and Candidature Page 202 Chapter 6 Themes and Approximate Contexts Page 223 Chapter 7 Travels During the Doctorate Page 265 iv Chapter 8 Conclusion Page 276 Bibliography Page 288 APPENDIX Page 289 v A list of works MUTATIONS OF MIGRATION There are five categories of production addressed in the following: * Ephemeral installations, grass works * Co-ordinated community projects developed before the Doctorate, and in conjunction with Casula Powerhouse (for after the completion of the Doctorate) (Boronia Project) * Visual works such as the Map of Boronia Garden and Of the Earth series, are abstract, Minimal works produced to some degree, as a result of these projects * DVDs made about and during the process of making those works * Written works presented in Chapter One which make clear an autobiographical connection to themes and processes. List of illustrated works.1 Table of Images by Chapter Chapter One Page 1 Figure 1: Black Painting, Rauschenberg, (1951) bitumen paint on newspaper. Page 10 Figure 2: Drawing of the Map of the Boronia Garden (one section) (2007) hessian, rice, latex, paper, knitting. Page 14 Figure 3: Randwick Historical Society Production Page 20 Figure 4: Cast grass object found on an electricity manhole cover in the grounds of the prison. 2000 Page 22 Figure 5: The Aboriginal Hospital at Malabar, from A Randwick Ramble. Page 23 Figure 6: View of the dungeon corridor at St Georges Hall with projection Page 27 1 This list of works includes exhibitions commencing before the Doctorate program, as well as during. Some are in progress and will be completed after. vi Figure 7: John Charles Frederick Sigismund Day from a National Portrait Gallery photographic collection. Page 28 Figure 8: Removing a grass cast. Page 29 Figure 9: Inside St Georges Hall, Liverpool U.K. Page 30 Figure 10: Drawing of the Map of the Boronia Garden (2000-2012) work on hessian Page. 31 Figure 11: St Georges Hall, Liverpool UK and inside the gigantic ballroom. ….. Page 31 Figure 12: Bruny Island Studio (in progress 2011). Page. 34 Figure 13: Bondi, Sydney 2004 Page 36 Figure 14: Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna 1999 Page 36 Figures 15 & 16: Sections of the garden work showing pathways which followed animal tracks, below is a circle which its makers described as their sacred site and adjacent to the beginnings of the pathway in a herb garden history. It also refers to Australia’s convict heritage which sits somewhere in our national psyche. Page 38 Figure 17: Assorted Spat out Ones blue and brown chewing gum on hessian 0.4 X 0.3 m 2005 Page 49 Figure 18: The Unravelling of Form 1995 Annandale Viaduct Page 52 Chapter Three Page 82 Figure 1: From left to right: Works by Robert Smithson include, mirrored and glass vii sculptures Untitled (1963) Mirror Statum – similar to Ziggurat, Red-Sandstone Nonsite Page. 92 Figure 2: Displacement#2 Mirror Travels in the Yucatan, Robert Smithson, original slide in the Guggenheim Museum, New York Page 116 Figure 3: Displacement#7 Mirror Travels in the Yucatan, Robert Smithson, original slide in the Guggenheim Museum, New York Page 117 Chapter Four Page 126 Figure 1: Boronia Garden showing Islander frangipani motif garden and turtle garden Page 133 Figure 2: (detail) Drawing of the Map of the Boronia Garden (2008) Page 135 Figure 3: Drawing of the Map of the Boronia Garden (2010) Page 136 Figure 4-6: Casting grass process images Page 153 Figure 7: Varying root systems (clover and kv rye) Page 155 Figure 8a & 8b: from of the earth series with émigré poem by Sarah Day and also of the earth (2009) with place names Page 158 Figure 9: small MESH works Page 164 Figure 10: Thistle made from crepe paper (2008) Page 165 Figure 11: experiment with concrete, wires and tubing Page166 Figure 12: Destiny of Objects Casula Powerhouse, Sydney (1995). ..................Page 169 Figures 13-21: Ephemeral installed work. Grass work, View from Sixty-Third Floor (1998-2010) Page 170 Figure 13: Artspace, Sydney Hydroponics systems included in View series (1999). Page 170 Figure 14: Artspace, Sydney Hydroponics systems included in View series, (1999) with hydroponic system and lighting Page 170 Figure 15: Artspace, Sydney Hydroponics system included in View series (1999) Page 171 Figure 16: Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts, curated by Anita Fricek (1998) Page 171 viii Figure 17: Bondi, Sculpture by the Sea. (2001) Page 172 Figure 18: detail of Sculpture by the Sea (2001) Page 172 Figure 19: Werribee Park, Helen Lempriere Award (2006) Page 173 Figure 20: Martin Place (installed on site of Dr Anne Graham’s work)(2004) Page 173 Figure 21: Change in the Weather2 (2006) Page 174 Figure 22-24: Liverpool/Liverpool: the skin of translation, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney and St Georges Hall, Liverpool UK (2010). Curated by Paul Howard. Page 175/176 Figures 25-28: Notes on the Castle, Tin Sheds Gallery, University of New South Wales (2004). Page 177/178 Figures 29-31: Of the Earth Series, (2007 and 2008), shown in A Lucky Country, curated by Daniel Cunningham, Ron and George Adams and Michael Rolfe, Hazelhurst. Page179/180 Figure 29: Wooden blocks forming plaster casts (2010) Page 179 Figure 30: Detail of the chaotic root systems of grass roots, sample peeled back from the plaster. Detail from Liverpool/Liverpool (2010) Page 179 Figure 31: Peeling the grass roots back from the plaster mold, hothouse Otago Bay.