Circular Temporalities

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Background: This major commissioned art-work builds on a legacy of environmental and site-specific art and film, with particular reference to contemporary artist, researcher and academic Susan Schuppli, whose works extend site specific artistic processes to encompass the contributions of the site itself. This approach elicits an encounter between the artist, environment and audience that shifts authorship from the individual artist to the collective in an expression of what Schuppli calls ‘Nature representing itself’.

Contribution: ‘Circular Temporalities’ is a site-specific installation situated in the ‘Norla Dome’, a heritage listed former gymnasium for two days in 2022. The gym was part of Melborne’s Mission to Seafarers, a global organistion that supports seamen when they come ashore. The installation considered political, spatial and temporal relationships elicited between the dome and global seafaring. This context was coupled with the formal language of the interior – a dome inspired by the Roman Pantheon – to generate a work comprising material and anecdotal histories and a 35 minute film. The film was a single take of an ocean crossing, projected on a 9-meter x 3 meter semi-translucent screen fashioned from sail-like fabric and scaffolding. The horizon bobs up and down the frame calling to mind the scale and temporality of the ocean, where seamen spend many months each year. The project invoked special significance during its installation, when seafarers were denied shore leave, due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

Significance: This installation was commissioned by Dr Fleur Watson and Dr Tara McDowell for the exhibition ‘Take hold of the clouds’, a curated exhibition within Open House Melbourne 2022. My contribution to the exhibition was widely advertised through social and
traditional media sources and received reviews in The Age, Architecture Australia and Memo Review. The film has been accepted into the Toronto University Film and Architecture Conference, 2023 titles ‘Intense Interiors’.