Light Materials: Lets Get Lost (2021)
Installation: video projections, rocks, costumes made from 16 mm film. Made during my Dark Matter residency at Photo Access in Canberra in 2021, the installation Light Materials-Let's Get Lost was an investigation into weaving and its connection to computers. I wanted to contrast the materiality of 16mm film with the so-called immateriality of digital media. Light Materials-Let's Get Lost is an exploration of the iconic Australian film by Peter Weir Picnic at Hanging Rock’ (1975) based on the novel by Joan Lindsay. Picnic at Hanging Rock is a typical story of lost white children in the Australian bush that reveals the fear and prejudice of Colonial Australia. However, I have conflicted feelings about this film; it is a beautiful film, I grew up with it. Hanging Rock is the site of a horrendous massacre of first nations people. The work is comprised of
1. Woven video- of Picnic at Hanging Rock - is projected onto rocks
2. A large projection of a video Lets Get Lost: in which a person disguised in a headdress and dress- that is woven from 16 mm film, walks bare foot through 'Australian bush". The footage was shot at Mt Majura, and also Red Hill during the Pandemic. The performer is Janet Long. (video below)
3. The costume was woven from 16 film I took of Mt Majura and developed at Photoacess. It was hung on the gallery wall nest to the projection of 'Lets Get Lost'.
Above: Lets Get Lost: (excerpt) a woman (performed by Janet Long) wearing a headdress and dress- woven from 16 mm film, walks bare foot through the bush at Mt Majura, and also Red Hill.
Above: Woven video of Picnic at Hanging Rock -projection onto rocks
Above: Headress woven from 16 mm film
