Portrait of Two Women

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This adapted installation from Deep Water /Aqua Profunda (the original, a 6 screen work in 2 spaces represented Australia at the 2001 Venice Biennale) experiments with/provides a model for possible recombinant strategies in the development of complex technologies/content to create different meanings for new contexts. It juxtaposes, in one space, 2 large-scale video works. One reveals the emotions of a woman (seen here as a video portrait), and the complex psychological thoughts as imagined/interpreted by 2 voices in English and Italian. The other is a life-size projection of a boat (Marlene Matthews) as it arrives and leaves a wharf. Everyone is waiting as the boat comes and goes in real time. This experiment in real time develops further Jones' 30 years of feminist research focusing on ways to present women as driving the narrative. Here, the space is entirely dominated by 2 voices and 2 portraits of women as though the only ones actually there. At a time when women are again being promoted as objects through much popular imagery, Jones sees this as central to her ongoing feminist research project. It also builds on her long use of several languages operating easily together in the one space. This contributes to creating powerful images of different cultures together in a context relevant both within Australia and elsewhere. These strategies led to Jones representing Australia in many international exhibitions (eg Los Angeles Olympic Games,1994, Kwangju Biennale, 1998, Venice Biennale in 2001). As new generations of viewers visit galleries, she believes it is essential that feminist cultural research is re-interpreted, as is the complexity of immigrant cultures. The book Darwin with Tears includes an important essay by Emeritus Prof Margaret Plant reprinted from the exhibition catalogue Deep Water/Aqua Profunda for the 2001 Venice Biennale.