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Yhonnie Scarce . Angela Valamanesh . Jess Wallace . Michael Yuen |
Process documents links + pdfs for offline............................... |
| Linda Marie Walker
Trying to be in space... Text For Maps Initial project notes: text1_long text1_short Teri Hoskin, writer-at-small Process summary Menu for local Chinese Restaraunt Stephen Loo ............................... |
Maps (a catalogue) download set of nine here (zipped file) or download individual maps linked from artists notes on the right and read curators essay Text for Maps linked above ............................... |
curator Dr Linda Marie Walker and Stephen Loo are both Senior Lecturers at the Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design, UNISA |
Dr Linda Marie Walker, curator
Trying to be in space, and to make a little space for art, easily, without anxiety …
It feels like (a felt thing) the surface of the space within which this project both makes itself and then (will, proposes to show) shows itself is not a public or a ‘common-ground’ space (and this feels like an agreed upon knowledge; it feels naïve to say it out-loud). That unless a specific decided space is governed to be a ‘designated’ public one ‘for art’ – agreed upon officially, and then officially offered for the reception of a public work of art that must – to more or less extend/degree (and art by degree (like a tolerable temperature) is a contestable idea) – meet pre-determined interests (monument, commemoration, general good, environmental message (but always a message of some already-known kind) then the surface of the world in the bits one can negotiate to work with – to give toward for brief, concise, amounts of time – is even then subject to highly regulated (impossible, and ‘impossible’ here means, literally without-possibility (not a condition of the possible, or a possibility in relation to the possible)) conditions. And yet, at the same time, there are no offers of alternatives (that is, possibilities that might eventuate, or might have emergent qualities, for instance the name of someone to speak with, the address of a building that could be accessed – it is still a mystery that massive warehouses are ‘out-of-bounds’, or perhaps, are not ‘in-the-centre’, or are wonderfully ‘too-atmospheric’, too haunted and difficult – who knows). The ideas of play, sense, pleasure, complexity (to the point of impossibility of other kinds), concern, collaboration, interaction, visitation, brevity, hospitality, are not entertained (as fabrics, as textures, as materials for making – writing, art, craft, performance, music, sound …) let alone engaged with positively (with humour, graveness, interest). Everything is, from the outset, approached from the position of the problematic (which establishes the idea of approach as primary to ‘work’, to how we get somewhere – in thought, in the ‘real’ world, in reading, in ‘figuring’ out the ‘situation’/whatever (toward the world, into the sense of the world (that is there, forever, in a manner of speaking)). The most troubling thing of all is that this (the position of the problematic/trouble) is ‘not surprising’. I mean, when one speaks of it, complains, worries, wonders what to do, responses are in the main ones that know already the ‘atmosphere’, or atmospherics (a feeling, still, and being a feeling, it is so difficult, so nebulous, to speak of, and yet so absolutely affecting of the body, and of one comportment of oneself in the day, everyday), one is speaking of (it is no surprise; that is, they confirm the worries … ). And yet the surface of the world is the ‘field’ upon which one attempts to work – to produce from, and produce for, knowing that the surface is an appearance amidst appearances (and that these appearances are mostly-invisible (imaginary, tended by laws, overseen by operatives, machined by time), and that it is a plane upon other planes. It is not a ‘lie’ or an image, it is living and dynamic and transitory. It conceals nothing, although it is replete with all that is not immediate to visibility. Yet, when trying to touch ‘space’, whether ‘public’ (as in an agreed domain/knowing) or ‘private’ (as in a space interior to the open-air public, and provided for public (as in the people who we live with) access) the idea of ‘the public’ is entangled in instrumentalities/institutions of immense complexities (blunt ones, and intricate one, some delicate and only there by the skin of their teeth) – and they are tools (made of animate and inanimate bodies) that position rules and regulations like border and walls; these complexities address important issues of danger, damage, damages; not issues to ignore, instead one that are easily understood, and issues that one can care about – so as to provide care, support, safety. But these issues are ones for discussion (as ‘public’ is a public idea) and generosity and responsibility, rather than contention, control, and a sort of feeling (given) that ‘we’ are (artists, for instance) not quite ‘there’. To be clear – there is no public space, free space, there is only controlled space, police/d space (and this in itself is not the issue, it is something else, like the infinitely-slight possibilities with that space, and what this means to how we live our lives with others …).
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