Sydney Biennale Part 2

On the secondary Justine and I caught the train out to Newtown for breakfast and wandered back into the city stopping at Biennale venues along the way. The Carriageworks hosts the Embassy of Disappearance."The Embassy of Disappearance addresses themes such as absence, memory, history and archaeology, and concerns in relation to natural resources, politics of spaces and questions of ownership of land."Rosenthal, S. (2016) The Guide. Sydney, Australia: 20th Biennale of Sydney.Gerald Machona (2012) Uri AfronautThe Afronaut works but Gerald Machona were both amusing and poignant. We see the outfits the Afronauts wear displayed as sculptural relics, as well as their journey in the form of a video piece. The costumes made of decommissioned currency parallel the state of the disenfranchised legal alien adrift in their own land. The Afronaut characters reference 'Nyau', a form of ritual dance incorporating masks that originates in Malawi.Gerald Machona (2012) Uri Afrinaut[embed]https://vimeo.com/160484000[/embed]Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2016) Home MovieThai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul creates film and experimental video works that address memory and representations of reality. He describes the work 'Home Movie' as being a ritual space in a cave-like environment where spectators gather to observe the light of the fire. I found this work mesmerising probably due to it's elemental and ritual nature which are themes that appeal to me personally. I also spent a great deal of time watching the work and thinking about the way it was made; a ring of fire surrounded by fans that blow the fire in gusts and eventually become consumed themselves imitating a dying planet. Jus and I discussed how dangerous this would have been to make what with the electrical-powered fans slowly being consumed by flame. I was thinking about the kind of studio set-up you would require, what sort of fire regulations would need to be in place etc. It was much to our amusement that we discovered the piece is called 'Home Movie"!The Embassy of Disappearance is a huge gallery space and I've only choose 2 works to show here, but we spent several hours there looking at all the pieces. I got really tangled up with whether certain pieces functioned effectively or not and Jus had to bring me back to the present so we could make it on to the next stage because we were both dying of thirst. After stopping for a drink and a sit-down we continued on to the Embassy of Transition which is housed in the beautiful Victorian Mortuary Station."The Embassy of Transition is situated at the Mortuary Station, a former train station in Chippendale used until 1948 to transport coffins from the city to Rookwood Cemetery. Closely related to the Embassy of Spirits, this Embassy brings together two artists who each engage with cycles of life and death, and rites of passage more generally."Rosenthal, S. (2016) The Guide. Sydney, Australia: 20th Biennale of Sydney.Charwei Tsai (2016) A Dedication to Those Who Have Passed Through Mortuary Station, SydneyCharwei Tsai's coils of incense have scripts written on them in different languages that contemplate the Bardo (the state between death and rebirth). During the course of the Biennale the coils will burn away and will not be replaced. Looking at photos of her incense coils installed in different environments I felt that the Mortuary Station was very 'busy' in its setting, it's ornamentation and style so that the quiet contemplation of the installation was lost. The meaning was still there, but the feeling of that state of transition between worlds was nullified by the visual clutter of new-victorian architecture and the busy tiled floor. I spent some time talking to the woman who had been employed to look after the works in this Embassy (mainly as a zoologist to care for the birds in Marco Chiandetti's works). Apparently the install had its own set of challenges that I was grateful to hear about; its easy to forget that well established artists deal with the same sorts of unanticipated questions and challenges that we do. Tsai had decided to install the objects lower than she at first envisioned because they would be lost in the rafters and it was definitely more engaging for us viewers to walk amongst them. There was also the challenge of the wind speeding up the burning process - will they last for the entire Biennale? The ash was being blown around the area rather than making circles on the floor, so the attendant was sweeping it up periodically rather than leaving it as it would be in an interior install.Charwei Tsai (2016) A Dedication to Those Who Have Passed Through Mortuary Station, SydneyMarco Chiandetti's 'The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and the other begins?' was installed but not yet active. The large aviaries and birdseed objects were in place but the myna birds intended to inhabit the installation were not yet present due to a hold-up with animal welfare permits. I would very much like to see this work progress over the course of the next couple of months.We continued on the the Gallery of New South Wales to visit the Embassy of Spirits. Along with the Museum of Contemporary Art, this was the most traditional gallery space."The early twenty-first century has seen a dangerous return to fats-based political conviction, with various belief structures becoming associated with extreme views, and violent and harmful acts that impinge on our everyday lives. A belief structure helps us to define what we think and believe about ourselves and the world. It is how we connect to the external world and environment in which we find ourselves. The Embassy of Spirits addresses the place in our lives of belief systems manifested in the form of religious and personal rituals."Rosenthal, S. (2016) The Guide. Sydney, Australia: 20th Biennale of Sydney.Mella Jaarsma (2015-16) DogwalkDogwalk by Dutch artist Mella Jaarsma is a set of performative outfits and a video showing performers wearing the costumes within the bounds of a 'dog walk'. Initially I found the outfits and the video deeply disturbing; I think this could be because I don't eat meat and am very concerned about animal rights? The costumes with the calf skin trailing it's legs along the ground (above centre) upset me the most because it seemed like a small animal being dragged to death. For me the 'Dogwalk' spoke of the different relationships humans have with animals that are considered companions and those that are considered food. Reading about the artist's intent it is a similar idea from a different viewpoint; the animal skins are those that have been slaughtered in Islamic ritual, but are being compared to dogs that are considered unclean. There is also the juxtaposition between cultural relationships to animals; in the west we consider dogs companions, in Islamic countries they are haram. She also delves into the idea of the trickster in folklore, the shaman wearing the skins of animals, human-animal hybrids etc. It's interesting because I'm not repulsed by shamanic characters in animal skins, maybe because there is a reverence at play? I saw no reverence in this use of skins which is perhaps what gave me such a negative reaction? The soundtrack music was jarring yet hypnotic and I felt it was very effective... I'm still not sure how to feel about this work, I think it was the one that affected me the most in terms of repulsion, but at the same time drew me in because I was fascinated by my own reaction.Nyapanyapa Yunupingu (2016) My Sister's CeremonyWalking through the door from 'Dogwalk' you encounter Nyapanyapa Yunupingu's My Sister's Ceremony which I found to be a soothing reprieve from the animal carcasses. A cool, dimly lit room is dappled with light and filled with a dream forest of marked and engraved wooden poles. She uses a meditative mark-making practice as a kind of ritual and an expression of the action of her hands.Nyapanyapa Yunupingu (2016) My Sister's CeremonyTaro Shinoda (2016) Abstraction of Confusion I enjoy experiential environments and I feel they are a successful way to convey the subtleties of ritual otherworldly experience. 'My Sisters Ceremony' did this with darkness and quiet, a womb-like ambience. Taro Shinoda's Abstraction of Confusion use's space and bright light together with the cool scent of drying clay to create an environment that conjures the tranquility of zen contemplation. This is a place of stillness, abstraction and thought. The coolness and smell of the space are soothing and work to quiet the mind and promote introspection.Taro Shinoda (2016) Abstraction of ConfusionTaro Shinoda (2016) Abstraction of ConfusionYin-Ju Chen (2014/2016) Liquidation MapsFinally, the 'Liquidation Maps' of Yin-Ju Chen. When Justine and I saw these we joked that they could be the unholy offspring of both of our art practices! We imagined my work and her work combining and giving birth to this show; detailed drawing, artefacts, alchemy, astronomy, macrocosm and microcosm, diagram-making and historical referencing all in one! In this installation Chen references important events in Chinese history then maps them as cosmic cartographies showing the position of the planets and the stars when the event unfolded. She references the interrelationships between cosmic events and human behaviour, the macrocosm and the microcosm. I appreciated how the works were displayed. Placing them in tables increased the cartographic and scientific presence, if they had been hung on the wall I feel they would have become more decorative and have held less weight.Yin-Ju Chen (2014/2016) Liquidation MapsYin-Ju Chen (2014/2016) Liquidation MapsYin-Ju Chen (2014/2016) Liquidation Maps