I found Rhi's post makes some quite useful points, and in putting together a response realised this might make more sense as a spin-off post than a comment.
I'm definitely finding 'too many ideas' more of an issue than too few. I guess that's a luxury that beats the alternative! I have a fairly strong impression of Bundanon in my mind, based on previous visits, so find a lot of my ideas are slotting into place in regards to specific things that may or may not work in different areas there.
When considering photographic/film opportunities, my thinking is more along spatial and reflective/responsive lines than historical, yet when I think of text it's the converse - it's more about exploring the time layer and being drawn to a 'yet-known' past, yet very much set in a particular space.
I've been reading a bit about Arthur and the Boyds, but not yet much about their time at Bundanon. I've been doing some 'practice' writing I suppose you might call it, but it's based more on Arthur's paintings than his life or Bundanon and surrounds.
'Based on' isn't very accurate mind you - it's more of a 'response' that touches on some of the themes and images (Greek mythology etc), but then takes on a life of its own. So while I could trace it back to what might have prompted a certain part or idea, it's probably not very obvious that they have any necessary co-relation. Some are closer than others, and some or so tangental as to bear little resemblance whatsoever - even to me by the time they're done.
I know we talked about a preference for a collaborative piece rather than a bundle, but the more I think about how it will work (the project, and the two weeks), the more I imagine it will be a mix. I've been spending the last few weeks and weekends devoting more time to creative work, and realising that creative fatigue can set in pretty quickly if I don't move from one form to another (eg after writing for a while, going and taking some photos to rest the writing mind).
I suspect similar things will happen over the two weeks, and that we will move between a central project and some parallel pieces to break things up. These pieces would still, potentially, fit into the 'umbrella' but also take some of the pressure off the joint work. Is this sort of approach what people are seeing working?
Rhi's concept of 'Distortion' is perfect. It fits really well with a lot of what we have talked about, and ties together that crucial third category of 'perspectives' in a way 'interventions' and 'fabrications' didn't quite.
Perspectives are very important to what we're all interested in, but until now seemed to have stood a little to one side. Distortion brings it in beautifully, and opens up a few more doors for my thinking about certain potential inclusions in the project - especially the visual aspects, but also in terms of writing.
The point about the difficulty of working with histories is definitely worth discussing. We're all under certain constraints (time, work, geographic) that mean a too-thorough understanding of the histories of Bundanon and its surrounds would come at the expense of actually creating any of our own.
What interests me more, anyway, is the imagined histories. Despite being fairly well maintained and set up, and a wealth of primary materials being theoretically available, most visitors to Bundanon only get a gloss of its history. They each carry around their own mix of snippets, the rest they fill in; imagining what life there was like, looking around to see whether they can sense the inspiration in the air.
Personally I think that's what we should also be working with - such snippets and snatches, given we can never hope to get across a 'complete' story anyway. And that's far from our purpose as I understand it. I see Bundanon and her history as a Pulpit Rock style leaping point, not a marsh for getting bogged down in. There is something in the air down there, and I want to spend time with that, not just tracing what somebody else did with it.
In terms of deciding 'which aspects of these ideas we'd most like to explore', I suspect they will all cross over at various points. We're still kind of dancing around our project it seems, rather than getting our teeth truly into it, but I wonder how much of that will chance in the next three weeks? I'm happy to nut down further if people are up for it and this blog is perhaps the best place for that.
Rhi feels we need to decide on what we are aiming to produce with a contingency plan if it doesn't work as planned. She mentioned agreeing on an expected outcome before we go away, else risk disaster. These seem good ideas, though I sense a little trepidation on people's behalf in this approach.
I'd like to hear what everyone thinks, but will go first. I'm still very much interested in exploring the potential for a site-specific work, but also remain aware that's one of the most logistically difficult. I think we could produce quite a strong project based on our two weeks there and subsequent work, but there will always be the matter of the location's remoteness. We've discussed tying it in with another event (eg FlameTree if it returns in 2008) but it does suggest we should consider opportunities beyond the location. I'd also like to talk more about the potential 'bundle' of works we could bring together if the site-specific aspect proves unworkable, so we can go into the fortnight with a pretty strong idea of what we are working on ourselves, but also what everyone else hopes to achieve.
- Benjamin
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Thursday, April 3
Tuesday, February 26
(Fabric)ations
In April and May this year, life between buildings will be setting up temporary home as artists in residence at ‘living arts centre’ Bundanon, perched over the Shoalhaven River on the NSW South Coast. Our time will be dedicated to unearthing the rich creative potential of the site, bequeathed to the Australian people by one of our most treasured artists, the late Arthur Boyd. Perhaps 'unearthing' isn't the clearest way of putting it, for the conversations we've had about our project have suggested that while it will be driven in many ways by our creative response to the environment and its past, our work will not necessarily 'reflect' the Bundanon that people may think they know.
Although it will be very much immersed in the natural and built environment of Bundanon, one of the main facets of this site-specific project we've talked about is the site's history. Now there’s a safe place to work - it’s happened, it’s there to be dug up; it’s straightforward documented fact. A cursory read of this and that and we’re set to roll. Except...
I’m much more comfortable with the notion of ‘histories’, and from preliminary conversations over the weekend retreat just held in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, there’s a sense in the life between buildings camp that there’s a shared interest in exploring the endless potential opened up by this notion. Rhiannon's idea of 'interventions' snowballed into all sorts of ideas being thrown about - some achievable, some likely to fall by the wayside - of how the different histories could be brought to life.
In our art as in our life, it seems we are all endeavouring to open up new possibilities, to rethink ways of seeing and creating. The challenges we set ourselves involve contesting received logics, narratives, histories; spoon-fed stories of easily digestible and non-contradictory factlets. That’s not to say we don’t all love our snippets and stories, the process of learning and understanding, it’s more to do with the grain of salt we each tend to carry in our pockets everywhere we go.
Our first major project together, a site-specific creative response based on Bundanon and its multi-layered recent past (working homestead, Boyd family residence, bequeathed arts retreat), is an opportunity to see where this approach can take us. Initial instincts may be to take the spoonfeeding, to respond in a way that seamlessly incorporates the ‘known’ Bundanon, but far more exciting is the potential for intervening on behalf of the overlooked, the unremembered, the never allowed.
A shorthand term for our approach to exploring such mythologies might be ‘fabrications'. The notion of place and history is so loaded, where is one to begin? The fabric of history will become, in our project, a fabricated history. By blurring the boundaries of the known and the unknown, the likely and unlikely - the possible and impossible – it’s likely to pose as many questions as it does answers. But therein lies the appeal, for we’re each interested in opening up rather than closing off, inviting rather than imposing - asking rather than telling.
Along the way, the very notion of creativity is likely to be brought into question. Does one create something if simply trading upon a pre-packaged past? Or does there need to more, an intervention into that past, an insertion of a new ‘something’ that might owe its taste or texture or sense to a past, but be equally indebted to the now, to a spontaneous eruption of a creative spirit that can’t be contained within the parameters of the pre-existing, ‘known’ past to which it might refer.
By fabricating, our intention is not to somehow elevate the reimagining over any existing, dominant narrative. Its purpose is to highlight the tenuous relation a story has in the first place to a transient ‘truth’. It’s a way to get inside the mythology built around a location such as Bundanon, peer beneath the mysterious aura of a site that played such an important role in the later life of one of our most venerated artists.
Our discussions about what was drawing us to the project, what possible means we may have of providing a meaningful site specific study of Bundaon, kept slipping into questions of time’s inexorable passage; the steady march of the future advancing on the present and outflanking the past, such that the mutability of time rendered impossible the notion of capturing forever an essence or truth claim that could somehow exist as an artefact outside of time/space/place.
Faced with such a slippery substance, the options were to pretend it wasn’t an issue, taking the usual path and pushing such concerns to one side, or to tackle them head on and try to beat them at their own game.
This very concept of contested histories, clashing perspectives and the erosion of a truth when seen through the prism of time, were in ample evidence over our weekend brainstorming session. By Sunday, the interpretations of what had taken place and been agreed upon the day prior were as colourfully varied as they were hotly debated. There were five recollections each struggling to be heard, but coming up against disparate and contradictory ‘histories’ of the day. It was exhausting and not exactly easy, but at the very least such friction illustrated everything we had been discussing.
In the same way, the parallel stories and histories we intend to develop through our Bundanon project are likely to slip in and out of safe ground, to allow some footholds while asking for the occasional leap of faith. Suspension of disbelief is, perhaps, the first step towards learning. Our aim is to lead participants on just such a learning experience into the unknown, albeit one in which we firmly recommend the odd grain of salt be brought for the ride.
-Benjamin
Although it will be very much immersed in the natural and built environment of Bundanon, one of the main facets of this site-specific project we've talked about is the site's history. Now there’s a safe place to work - it’s happened, it’s there to be dug up; it’s straightforward documented fact. A cursory read of this and that and we’re set to roll. Except...
I’m much more comfortable with the notion of ‘histories’, and from preliminary conversations over the weekend retreat just held in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, there’s a sense in the life between buildings camp that there’s a shared interest in exploring the endless potential opened up by this notion. Rhiannon's idea of 'interventions' snowballed into all sorts of ideas being thrown about - some achievable, some likely to fall by the wayside - of how the different histories could be brought to life.
In our art as in our life, it seems we are all endeavouring to open up new possibilities, to rethink ways of seeing and creating. The challenges we set ourselves involve contesting received logics, narratives, histories; spoon-fed stories of easily digestible and non-contradictory factlets. That’s not to say we don’t all love our snippets and stories, the process of learning and understanding, it’s more to do with the grain of salt we each tend to carry in our pockets everywhere we go.
Our first major project together, a site-specific creative response based on Bundanon and its multi-layered recent past (working homestead, Boyd family residence, bequeathed arts retreat), is an opportunity to see where this approach can take us. Initial instincts may be to take the spoonfeeding, to respond in a way that seamlessly incorporates the ‘known’ Bundanon, but far more exciting is the potential for intervening on behalf of the overlooked, the unremembered, the never allowed.
A shorthand term for our approach to exploring such mythologies might be ‘fabrications'. The notion of place and history is so loaded, where is one to begin? The fabric of history will become, in our project, a fabricated history. By blurring the boundaries of the known and the unknown, the likely and unlikely - the possible and impossible – it’s likely to pose as many questions as it does answers. But therein lies the appeal, for we’re each interested in opening up rather than closing off, inviting rather than imposing - asking rather than telling.
Along the way, the very notion of creativity is likely to be brought into question. Does one create something if simply trading upon a pre-packaged past? Or does there need to more, an intervention into that past, an insertion of a new ‘something’ that might owe its taste or texture or sense to a past, but be equally indebted to the now, to a spontaneous eruption of a creative spirit that can’t be contained within the parameters of the pre-existing, ‘known’ past to which it might refer.
By fabricating, our intention is not to somehow elevate the reimagining over any existing, dominant narrative. Its purpose is to highlight the tenuous relation a story has in the first place to a transient ‘truth’. It’s a way to get inside the mythology built around a location such as Bundanon, peer beneath the mysterious aura of a site that played such an important role in the later life of one of our most venerated artists.
Our discussions about what was drawing us to the project, what possible means we may have of providing a meaningful site specific study of Bundaon, kept slipping into questions of time’s inexorable passage; the steady march of the future advancing on the present and outflanking the past, such that the mutability of time rendered impossible the notion of capturing forever an essence or truth claim that could somehow exist as an artefact outside of time/space/place.
Faced with such a slippery substance, the options were to pretend it wasn’t an issue, taking the usual path and pushing such concerns to one side, or to tackle them head on and try to beat them at their own game.
This very concept of contested histories, clashing perspectives and the erosion of a truth when seen through the prism of time, were in ample evidence over our weekend brainstorming session. By Sunday, the interpretations of what had taken place and been agreed upon the day prior were as colourfully varied as they were hotly debated. There were five recollections each struggling to be heard, but coming up against disparate and contradictory ‘histories’ of the day. It was exhausting and not exactly easy, but at the very least such friction illustrated everything we had been discussing.
In the same way, the parallel stories and histories we intend to develop through our Bundanon project are likely to slip in and out of safe ground, to allow some footholds while asking for the occasional leap of faith. Suspension of disbelief is, perhaps, the first step towards learning. Our aim is to lead participants on just such a learning experience into the unknown, albeit one in which we firmly recommend the odd grain of salt be brought for the ride.
-Benjamin
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