Installing an exhibition is one of my favourite parts of the working process. It is when you get to see at the one time all of the work that had previously been stored under weights or wrapped in tissue. Regardless of how much work and planning has gone into the pre-gallery preparation, there are always small changes to be made to the final hang. The space dictates this. No, actually, the space allows this. It allows you to change a couple of things around (when you are the one installing the work, I should specify).
Our initial plan had been to hang my twenty-three birds and one butterfly at the end of Gracia's ordered grid of 464 postcards. A regimented grid that gave way to the more organic placement of my drawings. At first glance, it might appear, we thought, as though the birds were attempting to fly away with the curtain of postcard collages. But upon seeing the space with fresh eyes on the first morning of the install, and after laying out the work along the gallery floor (as opposed to other spaces), and noting the height of Stephen's photographic beauty, we had a rethink. Two ideas immediately presented themselves. The first, to place my bird drawings at irregular intervals atop the ordered collage grid of G's postcards as if they were giant hand-drawn collage elements. And the second, which we went with, to box the birds within the postcard collage grid, almost like placing them in a tomb. The birds are in line with the top and bottom postcards. I liked this as it really gave a sense of them being like specimens collected. They cannot fly, and even if they could, where would they go? The gallery space is not for wildlife. In writing this, I am reminded of G's description of a part in Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake for The Australian Ballet where she describes Odette, when committed to the sanitorium, as being "like a wild bird trapped in the house".
There is the human ache of the story, yet the movements are also keenly birdlike. Perhaps none more so than in Odette’s frantic flailing of arms-cum-wings as she realises her lover’s betrayal in Act I. Sometimes she appears almost with tragic broken foot or wing, still drawn as if by magnet’s pull to her Prince Unfaithful. She folds over again and again, collapsing in on herself, and with wings crumpled and now made heavy with tears she offers up all her hurt and agony to him and for all to see. Confusion manifest. A mad whirligig of a bird one moment, sorrow-bound the next.
By the
narrative familiar but presented anew, there is such lightness. But not
lightness without ache. Never without ache. When we are presented with
the heartbroken Odette committed to a sanatorium by Royal Command, at
the beginning of Act II, she moves as though part dancer, part bird, so
convincing her portrayal of a wild bird trapped in the house, beating
its wings at the glass. Clipped wing. Nature confined. Sedation
required. One moment rocking herself to self-soothe, the next retreating
to the “safe” confines of a corner. Against the tall white windows that
serve as bars to the little box prison, her wings flap and beat. Such
futility! If you have ever rescued an injured bird and taken it indoors,
you know the choreography. Upon awaking from shock’s stupor, it tries
to escapes the man-made confines, and it is heartbreaking to watch.
(Read in full)
Gracia Haby, Louise Jennison, Stephen Wickham
All breathing in heaven
Until Sunday 13th of October, 2013
Geelong region artists program
Geelong Gallery, Little Malop Street, Geelong
