GRRRLS Teen Box Project.
Category: Australia
What the Women Gave Me
The making of this second box afforded me the opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the many wonderful and precious things given to me by women; artists friends colleagues, and strangers whom I will never meet, who share like souls…
To the Ngarrindjeri* Woman who taught me how to weave, and gave me a part of her culture…
To the Women who nurtured and encouraged my talents and refused to let me give up…
To the communities of Women who have taken part in Women Beyond Borders…
Thank you.
* Ngarrindjeri (pronounced narr-ind-jerri), people are indigenous Australians, originally from South Australia. These people traditionally wove to make traps and baskets in which to gather, store and carry their food and bury their dead. Today few Ngarrindjeri know how to weave.
The Women's Voices: Diana Robson from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.
Souvenir From Hawaii
I have covered the surface of this box with pieces of plastic found on a beach in Hawaii in 1993.
On one hand, I saw all this plastic as evidence of the persistence of this detritus of capitalism’s endless appetite for more THINGS; on the other, I was struck by the weathering of these ambiguous fragments as they begin to resemble organic flotsam and jetsam.
The categorizing of things washed up like this becomes more difficult and the beach becomes a shifting archeological site of displaced artifacts (or garbage) driven by the tides. Presumably, eventually these things break down into a kind of synthetic sand.
Keep Pacific Nuclear Free
Pandora’s Box
The subject of this work, Pandora, like Eve, Lillith, Medusa, had her meaning and function inverted during the establishment of the patriarchal gods. Originally a persona of the earth goddess who rose from the earth with outstretched arms bringing life sustaining gifts of fruit and plants, she was rewritten, and like Eve became the source of misery and punishment for the human race.
My Favourite Things
My most recent work has been installation-based amalgamations of photographic images and text, the result of which is a cross-over into an almost cinematic form and aesthetic. My practice has shifted from an analytical approach to the concepts outlined above to a more personal exploration of them. My use of image and text alters the codes which are usually brought to bear in ‘readings’ of these mediums. Each form is pushed aside in favor of the other, forcing them to jostle each other for primacy. The text is always my own writing, which consists of nightmarish vignettes (real and imagined), frequently including references to some popular cultural homily, in order to insert some humor/irony, and to suggest that there are certain pleasures to be obtained from the so-called negative aspects of culture/existence.
I decided to base my box on work I am currently exhibiting in a group show titled Fear Incorporated. I have closed and enclosed my box to suggest the mystery of that which is hidden (psychological/cultural, whatever). I then re- inscribed the surface of the box (or the cube it has become) in two layers. The first layer – photographic flowers, dissimulating nature – seduces, as only images of natural beauty can, yet forms a surface which shuts off investigation. The next layer – the text touches on the mysteries of the subconscious. The box spins around on its chain to laugh at the simplification of these complexities inherent in such ideas produced within popular culture (albeit a somewhat nostalgic, dated form of it) as “I simply remember my favorite things.” At the same time it suggests the potential for a kind of pleasure to be found in that which is relegated to the negative.
The Bible
Then the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep and while he was sleeping he took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh. He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. Then the man said, “At last here is one of my own kind.”
Genesis v, 22-23
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If I could place history on a light box
and make its face transparent
I could illuminate its unseen structure
upon which its strength depends.
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GRRRLS Teen Box Project.
May You Continue To Inspire
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GRRRLS Teen Box Project.
If it weren’t for her skull, the head would cave in on itself.
Welcome
GRRRLS Australia Teens project.
Keeping the Lid On
I am interested in the matters of the psyche and how that is reflected in everyday life, as well as myth, symbol and stories. This work Keeping the Lid On could also be called a bee in her bonnet or stirring up a hornet’s nest.
Jan Fieldsend from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.
The Price Of Beauty
My piece is a treasure box that is beautiful and appealing on the outside, but on the inside it contains the bad things about being a woman, i.e. dieting, sex, wrinkles, which in turn is the price of beauty.
Bush Box
We Are This and That and Everything In Between
Ironically, rather than dealing with the Individual, Western society tends to place us in particular categories (little boxes) and more specifically opposing polarities in order to deal with us more easily, more quickly, less personally.
This easy stereotyping is even more prevalent in regard to the position of women: Madonna/Whore, Mother/Worker, Young/Old, Beautiful/Ugly, Nature/Culture. This box contains references to the stereotyping that we as women experience and the title, We are This and That and Everything in Between, refers to the true individual nature of the female sex.
The Women’s Voices: Diana Robson from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.
Pressing Issues
In the tradition of the found object and the democratic processes of making and distributing art, I have made a mini printing press out of my cedar box. The box is now a stamp with a pad inside the box with pressing issues waiting to be revealed.
• Who controls female fertility?
• What happens to all the women and children who are refugees?
• Can women artists maintain careers into old age?
Therese Kenyon, Australia – Director, Manly Art Gallery from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.
Magic Box
Covered with computer motherboards, connecting wires and glittering holographic stickers, harbors a rabbit inside, the oldest trick in the book. The rabbit represents the ambiguous nature of technology, simultaneously creating fantastic and magical results, while conversely negating magic and myth through infinite research and explanation of detail.
The march of technology is rampant, and it would be foolish not to become involved. Considering its widespread implications for the future, it offers a Pandora’s Box hope to potentially help the world through science, medicine, information, etc.
Changes will come just as they always have, only with lightning speed. Time for contemplation is scarce, but it is nevertheless necessary, for we don’t want to find in the end that the magic tricks which technology promises are simply the same illusions which have clouded our visions in the past.
Whittle Box
My whittle box was created in a moment. I wanted to express through the box something which was inherent about my life as a woman now.
When I began the box, I was looking after a recent exhibition. With time on my hands and feeling at ease and relaxed, I began to craft the box carefully smoothing the edges and finely sanding the surfaces.
I put the box away, took my exhibition to another state and on my return found myself overwhelmed by things to do. Every one wanted a piece of me and I wanted to do it all, but I found myself being whittled away, becoming more fragile with each passing day. I carried my whittle box around with me everywhere, waiting for an opportunity to work on it.
Finally after finding myself locked out of a premises one day tired and frustrated, I took my whittle box out of my bag and began whittling and stuffing the wood shavings back into the box the way I wanted to try and renew myself. After a few hectic minutes of total expression I fell asleep.
My whittle box is an expression of the frustration and fatigue felt by those who give until it hurts, stretch themselves to the limit and find that sometimes, they lose sight of themselves.