Event Cancellation of Saturday 26 June opening & talks

EXHIBITIONS: originally planned to be open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun 18 June- 18 July 2021

EXHIBITIONS OPEN 11am - 5pm Sat-Sun 17-18 July 2021 (subject to lockdown lifting 16 July)

EVENTS CANCELLED DUE TO COVID: Opening event and artists' talks Saturday 26 June and 3 July 2-5pm 

Articulate is closed until end of lockdown, with plans to extend current shows by two weeks, with final talks and closing on weekend of 17/18 July if lockdown is lifted by then. 

Dell Walker's Holding Back the Tide celebrates Articulate's decade of support for spatial art practice by being the 27th project space project, a program that Articulate began in 2011 to encourage artists to use the project space to develop projects in the same space in which they are shown. 

It is supported by psp.doc in ArticulateUpstairs, that shows artist's documentation of earlier project space projects by artists Sue Callanan, Lesley Giovanelli, Terry Hayes, The Hypothetical World, Aude Parichot, Kathryn Ryan, Alan Schacher, William Seeto and Toni Warburton.

Dell Walker, Holding Back the Tide 2022

photos: the artist

 CATALOGUE

Conditions of entry:

 Please do not come if you are unwell or a contact of a COVID-19 case.

 Complete your contact tracing information on entry to Articulate.

 Keep 1.5 metres distance from others and wear a face mask

Use the hand sanitisers provided at the entrance to Articulate. 

Project space | Dell Walker - Holding Back the Tide

Extended until Nov 14th
Open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun

Artist talks Sunday Nov 7th, 2pm - 3.30pm

CATALOGUE

Dell Walker's Holding Back the Tide celebrates Articulate's decade of support for spatial art practice by being the 27th project space project, a program that Articulate began in 2011 to encourage artists to use the project space to develop projects in the same space in which they are shown. It is supported by psp.doc in ArticulateUpstairs, which shows artist's documentation of ten of the earlier project space projects.

Dell Walker, Frolic/Freeze 3, Articulate, 2020 (detail), balancing found styrofoam packaging

Holding Back the Tide

Both the process and the final appearance of this immersive installation are important, so visitors are welcome to see the work as it develops over the weeks, June 15 – July 4. You are invited to gently touch the work and/or participate by adding your own styrofoam. I will be working during opening hours (Fri - Sun, 11 - 5) and for other times to meet call 0424 444 631.

Rubbish art that thinks about acquiring and discarding

In Holding Back the Tide I link two inundations. Firstly, in purchasing we are still awash in single-use plastics (though that tide is beginning to turn). Secondly, careless disposal of these plastics creates a flood of rubbish and litter worldwide, impacting the planet, especially the oceans.

For this Project Space Project, I attempt to integrate two methods of ‘playing’ with plastic rubbish: hanging tiny pieces of litter in a variation of a child’s mobile, and, sculptural assemblage by balancing (house-of-cards style) with discarded, single-use, preformed polystyrene foam packaging shapes. An immersive, gradually modulating installation of vulnerable materials. 

With Articulate’s front door facing south, the strong wind gusts will require some ingenuity with the styrofoam, but no glues, tapes, cutting or pinning will be employed, to avoid making more litter. The foam is so light that it can easily escape into the environment during transportation or when left out for hard rubbish collection. In the weather it breaks up, blown or washed into drains and waterways, onwards towards the oceans. There, along with all the other plastics, it mimics fish food and disrupts hormones of all creatures. Plastics do not break down for at least 500 years, they just break up into minute particles, even more problematic than the unsightly debris.

Worrying about the state of the planet led me to first pull styrofoam out of the weather and into the studio but once there, this foam became just material and it is sheer fun to be able to make temporary installations with the endless variety of these crisp machine-cut forms. However, I am not interested in foam from recycling. My works critically depend on discardedness, the needless waste from thoughtless accruing in the dominant philosophy of our culture: consumerism.

Rubbish is not rubbish

Rubbish is a generic name that enables easier discarding; our unwanted, which we wish to conveniently disappear. If polystyrene foam is regarded as material, as for soft plastics going to REDcycle outside supermarkets, we would deliver it to densification machines, to remove its 98% air. Melted into a white solid, it can be melted again to form other products (now mostly for building products, in the past single-use cutlery was polystyrene). Currently made from fossil oil, foam packaging could be made from vegetable products, as with the loose-fill packing ‘noodles’, which dissolve out of doors. Alternatively, appliances are sometimes packaged with preformed recycled cardboard fitting the negative spaces (as for eggs). Styrofoam inserts can be returned to the retailer to dispose of, but shopping online results in more packaging and less responsibility for it. Packaging skips behind retailers were for recyclers but these have largely disappeared with other countries no longer willing to buy our unsorted plastics. 

The value of rubbish is starting to be recognised with more bottles made with 100% recycled plastic.

The turtle’s view

As well as utilising discarded styrofoam, the second aspect of this Project Space Project will take a diver’s or a turtle’s view of our plastic litter. Delicate hangings in this section will be affected by viewers’ movements among them, giving agency. To sway with an underwater motion, the tiny pieces of litter needed to be glued to an unobtrusive, lightweight support. Human hairs sufficed, with the bonus of hanging the responsibility on all humans for the rubbish. While some marine debris is generated on the oceans or shores, a considerable proportion starts inland, carried out by wind or rain.

Post-consumer debris from streets, creeks, parks and beaches is used. The majority of this litter remains single-use items, especially packaging, and has come to be made of increasingly seductive, fluorescent and translucent plastics, in the battle for market share; they become eye-catching for sea creatures. 

All hang from discarded foam sheets, that separate flat-pack furniture; like the furniture, this mobile can be disassembled for storage and reuse. Art is a second use for rubbish. In salvaging any plastics for art use, I am holding back the tide: a dam to impede progress, or a rubbish trap in the drain flowing to the sea.

Some efforts toward stemming the tide of plastic debris

Art is a temporary measure that draws attention to rubbish, normally beneath notice. After art, recycling is an option for the clean styrofoam, but for dirty plastics or those made from fused mixed plastics (as in toys and toothbrushes) there is no recycling. 

Reuse is preferable to recycling. Without the costs of recycling processes, reuse extends a product’s life and reduces its carbon footprint. Reuse is a pivotal key towards zero waste: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse/Repair, Recycle or Rot.

I am not focused on this weighty topic as I work; it is enjoyably challenging to be given such a large space with my rubbish, figuring ways to wedge and interlock foam forms to resist the southerly winds yet still appear precarious, like ecosystems. The best method to hold back the tide of rubbish is to resist the source. Resist the ploys of marketers who engineer artificial demands for products, ignore the advertisers that try to convince us to be unhappy with what we have, and the conglomerates that deceive by saying that consumerism is driven by customers. 

This artwork was instigated by deep concern over global warming and environmental degradation as a result of over consumption (all the pollution generated in manufacturing and transportation of short-lived goods). Instead of simply making a statement by bringing in lots of packaging waste, an immersive and interactive artwork was planned, playing balancing games with all my fantastic shapes again. My work often reconfigures the negative aspects of litter and waste into art that catches joy or awe, beauty or gentleness, curiosity or intrigue. The result is engagement, encouraging viewers to seek understanding.

Dell Walker

June 2021

Download as pdf

_______________________________________________________________

Conditions of entry:

NSW Public Health Order requires all visitors over 16 years of age,
To sign in with the QR code provided at the entrance,
To have double vaccination, and wear a mask.
Social distancing rules will also apply.
Please don't come if you are feeling unwell.
Articulate is a registered Covid Safe business.

Previous advertised dates, changed due to lockdown in Sydney
Open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun 18 June- 11 July 2021
Opening event Saturday 26 June 2-5pm
(postponed till 10/11 July subject to lockdown)
Artists talks (postponed till 10/11 July subject to lockdown)
Saturday 26 June 2pm: Dell Walker, Aude Parichot, Alan Schacher
Saturday 3 July 2pm: Dell Walker

Upstairs | psp.doc

Resumes Oct 15th, till Oct 24th
Open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun

Artist talks Sunday Nov 24th 2-5pm

Sue Callanan, Lesley Giovanelli, Terry Hayes, Aude Parichot, 

Alan Schacher, Dell Walker & Toni Warburton.

CATALOGUE

psp.doc shows the work of artists Sue Callanan, Lesley Giovanelli, Terry Hayes, The Hypothetical World, Aude Parichot, Kathryn Ryan, Alan Schacher, William Seeto and Toni Warburton that documents the project space project they undertook at Articulate during the last decade.

Articulate beg: an the project space project in 2011 by inviting artists to work in Articulate's 27m long ground floor project space for pre-determined periods  of 1-3 weeks, in whatever way a project space serves their art practice at the time. The broad aim is to show what a project space is through the accumulation of the various ways that artists employ it in their art practice. 

All the project space projects (psp) are recorded on Articulate's public archive with images and text.  

The psp.doc exhibition provides physical artspace (but different from and smaller than the project space) and a catalogue space for writing, for artists to reduce their project space project to whatever material continuation, summary, analysis or other form of documentation that they think appropriate.

Psp.doc will be accompanied by a new project space project on the ground floor project space and back room: Holding Back the Tide by Dell Walker. 

Toni Warburton  idea for a conic frustum basin form, 2021, watercolour on rag paper.210mmx310mm

Toni Warburton Template Panorama 2012 (day 8 of project) photo: William Seeto

Toni Warburton, Conical frustum basin forms: cumulative retrieval series.2021.  Various media, including bookbinders’ muslin, paper, hessian, canvas, chicken wire, fabric, thread, paint, glue. H 140mm, W 540mm 

draw    notation   space   encryption   base        imprint    writing   map code    decipher    grain     pixel      texture Fold    roll     compress      shape      conic     section        trace      edge    circle  cone         oval   ellipse   rim     moment   clay     paper   canvas    object    sew     outline     contour     stitch   profile     template       elevation   shape  plan  top   pattern   MA*      base    copy      side    scissors     repeat   brush     duplicate     foot   pot   void   calligraphy     pleat      void    join    door              action       point   container    codicil    seam  decryption  plane illustrate     opening            replica   compose     variation   form    line    empty       translate       tear     expanse      evidence    grid     arrange       sunlight       study      calibrate             interval     inaction            dart     striation    marginal       window          join          repeat         sketch    duration   drape   italic            illumination      expanse    pause     mold      crenellate        shadow       prototype              assemble      edition               air   serpentine             reflection    artifice     morphology          cut   absence          cursive      bend     decipher      unwind          scratch     blend                                     

*Japanese aesthetic concept  of time and space  

William Seeto, 'Untitled (b-g3.r.g3.w.y3.gr.b)' 2021  

Untitled (b-g3.r.g3.w.y3.gr.b) is work that is part of Articulate’s project space project documentation series; as an addendum to previous use of Articulate’s exhibition space to consolidate practice and artwork relative to site. It documents process to reconceptualise and extend form with images and artwork. 

It is a continuation of Art & Situation in 2019, a process based project over 12 days that deconstructed and re-purposed 3 pairs of crutches, as well as created two site-specific projections consisting of one and three painted oblique squares using fixed-point perspective, work dependent upon location and viewable only from set positions.

 

Untitled (b-g3.r.g3.w.y3.gr.b) continues examining spatiality ‘in between’ sculpture and painting with re-purposed objects of interest in the form of deconstructed domestic furniture from the 1980s to extend the dialogue between everyday objects, sculpture, painting, and site. It balances form, colour and composition and is inspired by Arte Povera.

In a way it looks at space in a literal sense and as visual metaphor by working with objects, colour and the built environment. It offers a personal formalised dialogue where ‘site’ and ‘art’ is queried as to whether one or the other is more important, and poses questions of how spatiality and objects interact, inform, or interfere with the work and its location.  

***

William Seeto is an installation artist with a practice of 41 years. His site-specific constructed installations examine perceptual qualities by incorporating immersive light, sensory perception and luminal light fields (Ganzfelds); his ephemeral works re-purpose everyday materials in a blend of minimalism & kinaesthetic experience.

 

http://williamseeto.blogspot.com.au/

 

The Hypothetical World

Boxed Corner

2021

Cardboard 30x30x300cm approx., photocopy

Seminal to this work is the exhibition The Question Consortium, which was held at Articulate project space in 2015. Both works together query our worlds within worlds. In this appeal of what we may consider as cosmic dance, corners play a fundamental part. Corners organise the worlds' coexisting realms. Boxed Corner refers in that sense to our utmost experience of corners' status, which unites and divides worlds, both subjectively and normatively. In space time is life, and are we and I, with and through corners, which concomitantly allow and limit our individual and shared experiences. To corners' universality stick things and non-things alike, from materialist grapple to epic discontent about origin, causality, and fake criticism. Attached to them are also our utterly romantic encounters with chance and speculative embracement of the future. Corners' physical and metaphysical omniscience comes to light equally in the plethora of phantasms including our most hidden and wildest dreams. The corner is one of worlds' great commons, a world glory hole, from which, relentlessly, we attempt to become liberated or struggle to separate. The corner reminds us also of our remarkable impetus when it comes to our hideous desire and instinct to govern or even just to be in or with the world.

Sue Callanan FENCING: Repairs and maintenance (2017, 2021) 

The idea for Fencing: repairs and maintenance arose when the opportunity of doing a project space  project coincided with my having completed construction of a fence around my home. The leftover pile of palings and sticks became source material for translating the notion of fence to Articulate.

The sticks and palings became tools for defining, marking and also dividing the space. They also became a form of large scale notation. I moved them from one end of the space to the other in an evolving series of installations, where one idea flowed on from the one preceding it.

Whilst appearing functional, the arrangement of the sticks, over time, began to take on metaphoric meanings in relation to the marking dividing and barricading. For each progression, I found a new title: 1. Landing  2. River of Styx,  3. Opposite sides of the fence, and so on.

The overriding title, Fencing: repairs and maintenance held a clue to the functional aspect of addressing the everyday management of life and its material substance within the architectural or urban framework within which one finds oneself. However, the open-ended site of the project space (compared to that of home and actual fence) becomes a container for expanding the notion of the mundane through the lens of the poetic. It allows that moment where the real (mundane) and the poetic hyphenate, see sawing from one to the other.

Documentation

For the documentation, the presence of some of the fencing material, with its physicality, colour, texture and solidity seemed crucial, but for it to have any meaning, I needed to find a spot where the idea of ‘fence’ was relevant. I located a small pocket of space which allowed me to create an enclosure, contiguous with the stair rail, itself a fence.

It’s challenging, in retrospect, to identify the core elements of the work, as ideas evolved quite rapidly over the course of the week, morphing from one idea and form into another. Again I came back to the title, Fencing: repairs and maintenance, and decided to use it as the header for a log book with a list of entries of ‘works’ undertaken. My aim was to present this in a condensed form, and in doing so, to draw out not just the physical connotations of fence, but also the metaphorical ones.

It occurred to me that one could also record the different configurations in the form of diagramatic notation. Both of these last two representations, log book entries and diagramatic notations, in effect become part of a new work with reference to the original. They served to encompass an element implied rather than spelt out. It becomes clear to me that in any work, the act of documenting (reviewing and reflecting) becomes a new creative act triggered by, but independent of its original counterpart.

 

Open to contingencies- Invitation to possibilities 

20-day project, May 2021.

Documentation: Fluid memory, day 20, one channel video, 3h1min25s, and mixed media.

For 20 days, I committed to work every day on a site specific series of works, responding to the place, evolving with time and interactions. In a John Cage’s spirit, who stated  “Life without structure is unseen. Pure life expresses itself within and through a structure”, I aimed to let the project unfold in an open creative process within specific parameters of time, space and engagement.

Kathryn Ryan Drawings of Pieces of Practice 2011

When I got to Articulate in 2011 I didn’t have much with me. I had two carry bags of small things that were easily moved on public transport. It was always very hard for me to identify the materials of my practice but with time and absence I see now that they were objects of proximity and convenience, there were so many practical considerations that defined what I chose: Money, opportunity, portability, and a certain material flexibility to sympathise with the spaces I worked in - which for most of my practice happened to be non contemporary with natural elements.

All these restrictions were freeing in a way, whatever I chose had to be chosen and that’s what I had to work with. All these objects, discarded from old houses, living in op shops, and littered along streets, form a line along a network of busses and trains that encompass a space that was entirely personal and yet also shared.

I never tried to make these objects make sense or to find out what they meant, I just enjoyed the challenge they presented to surprise me, and hopefully others. It was very much like working with words and finding their poetry. Anyway, I remember that Articulate as a space had a lot of rough edges. There were cracks and bricks and wood and natural things left undone. And without these I don’t know that I could have made anything without becoming lost. I needed these areas as points of departure - and as an end point to the tether the journey of these objects.

At the end of my time I drew each miniature installation as a way of keeping it and making something I could own. 

Terry Hayes 'I believe you have something to tell me' (Polish version)  22 x A3 sheets of dissolved text

'I believe you have something to tell me' (Polish version) stems from a randomly selected text comprising of 192 words that I initially transcribed by hand onto an A3 sheet of paper with a non-permanent blue marker pen. I then decided to further transcribe this hand written copy onto another sheet shortening the text by omitting the letter 'A'. This shortened text was then further transcribed, omitting the letter 'B' and so on and so forth until all that was left on the final sheet were 'Y's (there were no 'Z's in the random text.)

On completion of this progressive deletion across the 24 pages, each separate sheet was then dipped into a bucket of water, upside down, partly dissolving the text and then allowed to drain. The sheets were then hung out to dry.

The Polish version of the dissolved texts were produced in a re-enactment that followed an identical procedure to that of the original English version. The re-enactment took place in Łódź, Poland in 2012.

Lesley Giovanelli Garden Wall 2021

A documentation of ‘Garden Wall’ developed during a project space project in 2019 at Articulate project space. Materials used: polystyrene, dyed wool hanks, polyester wadding (spray painted), painted paper

During my project space project in 2019 I was able to explore elements in space on the large scale afforded by Articulate which would be impossible in my studio. Each week I used a different element from my practice: soft hanging bags, fabric patchwork curtains or coloured objects. For this documentation show I will only reconsider the coloured objects. I used large blocks of styrofoam covered in paper or fabric juxtaposed with coloured planes on the wall, floor or hanging freely. Coloured wool was both a playful and textural element. The psp gave me the opportunity to play and discover without the expectation of showing the work and gave me a greater understanding of how to handle large 3 dimensional space. I am reflecting on the work after a period of time, in particular I am able to think more critically about the colour relationships and the possibility of greater textural variety. I will make an installation using the same elements but condensed and packaged. Smaller blocks and paper rolled up then bound with wool will be placed against a coloured wall and floor plane. The effect of reusing the same materials whilst changing the scale will mean a change in proportions. It should feel chunkier and bulkier than the original but also give an idea of the potential. I would like it to feel ambiguous, as if the materials could be unpacked and opened up to form a much larger work whilst still working as an installation in its own right.

_______________________________________________________________

Conditions of entry:

NSW Public Health Order requires all visitors over 16 years of age,
To sign in with the QR code provided at the entrance,
To have double vaccination, and wear a mask.
Social distancing rules will also apply.
Please don't come if you are feeling unwell.
Articulate is a registered Covid Safe business.

Previous dates and events, cancelled due to lockdown in Sydney

Open 11am - 5pm Fri-Sun 19 June- 11 July 2021

Opening Saturday 26 June 2-5pm (Cancelled and postponed till 10/11 July subject to lockdown) 

Artists talks:

Saturday 26 June 2pm: Dell Walker, Aude Parichot, Alan Schacher, Lesley Giovanelli, William Seeto, Terry Hayes.  (Cancelled and postponed till 10/11 July subject to lockdown) 

Closing and artists talks: Saturday 3 July 2-5pm: Dell Walker, Sue Callanan, Toni Warburton, Aude Parichot, Alan Schacher, Lesley Giovanelli, William Seeto, Terry Hayes.  (Cancelled and postponed till 10/11 July subject to lockdown)