The beautiful set-up.

{The slow but steady setting-up process.}

Our exhibition with Stephen Wickham, All breathing in heaven, is, as of Saturday, open (with an official opening to follow come the end of August). Having an exhibition to set up, as Louise expressed, proved the strongest antidote for the to-be-expected post-MIFF 2013 blues. With one day between the 53-films-seen festival's brilliant, self-inflicted and I'd-do-it-all-again-in-a-flash exhaustion and the installation of 464 postcard collages, 23 hand-drawn birds, and one butterfly, we've adhered to the Don't Stop Moving principle (which may or may not prove September ghastly).

Our work took three days to install in response to Stephen's grid that takes you under the sea and shoots you high so as to tickle the ceiling, and here is a little of that long, always enjoyable, fantastical roller-coaster process. Two favourite things back-to-back: immersion through cinema and exhibition installation. I love the absolute focus that comes with both. All else fades into the background. I love the privilege of being let loose in the gallery to install a work over several days. It is for me, I guess, a twin to the sanctum of the theatre. A space quite 'other' into which you've stepped. Things feel different, and senses are amplified. It is for the explorer! I'd bottle and live off that keenly-aware elation for days on end if I could.
























{Where ladders appear to dance and paper towel proves ever handy for the laying out of 70 columns in neat sequence.}

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

+ The initial map
+ In earlier guise
+ Geelong Gallery media release

+ Soon! Swoon! "Like so many Romantic ballets, the appeal of La Sylphide lies within its exquisite deceptions."