Nigel Helyer, GhosTrain: image of interior from project website, 2010

Architecturally, CarriageWorks has preserved the structures of the rail yard while creating new spaces within it to function as theatrical venues and offices. The building is a perfect symbiosis of old and new. However, to sound artist and sculptor Nigel Helyer, something was missing. Preserving the shells of human history, its buildings, leaves the social history of places unpreserved.

In working on GhosTrain, a multi-phase work, Helyer seeks to resurrect and preserve the more ephemeral life that once was in the building. In the first phase, the Sydney-based artist collected oral histories from former workers in the railyard in order to create audio portraits (listen to Station No. 1 for an idea of the train sounds used at CarriageWorks). In this second phase, he has created a site-specific audio installation that literally moves through the building, sound spills from one overhead speaker to the next.

Helyer will then, in the final phase, bring the first two phases together and create an interactive iPhone app that will be a “location sensitive augmented audio reality sonic-cartography,” as the artist describes it. Thus, the preserved building will be complemented by a resurrected audio history, the life that once was will again run through the building.

Historic photo of CarriageWorks, photographed from historic marker in building's lobby by Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin.

The sounds of a shunting train resonate in the space because of the history implied by that space. The sound is specific to a time and place; just like landmarks commemorate moments in a landscape, soundmarks also reference moments in history. Within the discipline of acoustic ecology created in the 1970s to record soundscapes being contaminated by sonic pollution, soundmarks were defined to be sounds highly evocative of a specific place. By capturing the ephemerality of sound through recording, Helyer manages to create an extremely powerful statement about the transience of social history.

Nigel Helyer, GhosTrain: image from project website, 2010

As the last train whistle echoed through the once-again-silent building and the train disappeared back towards the quiet depths of the past, I felt a shiver down my spine. Helyer masterfully evoked an entire history while leaving much unspoken, unheard, and unseen. In a simple 90 seconds, my conviction of the power of sound as a medium unto itself was only reinforced. We often forget the ghosts that run through our historic buildings. For now at least, at CarriageWorks, whispers of the past have found a strong voice.
GhosTrain (also detailed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation Pool website) runs on time at 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday at Performance Space in the lobby of the CarriageWorks building in Sydney, Australia, until June 5.

Fiona Tan, Disorient (still), 2009. Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

There is little wonder why Indonesia-born, Australia-raised and Netherlands-based artist Fiona Tan explores the idea of journey, perception and representation in such exquisite nuance and layered detail. Her project for the 53^rd Venice Biennale, Disorient (2009) explores the 25-year journey of Marco Polo by elucidating and illustrating his text, Il Milione, about his epic quest through Asia. Presented at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Disorient consists of two videos accompanied by a narrator reading the aforementioned text. One video pans slowly through a warehouse of lavish and miscellaneous curios from a pan-Asian journey: lanterns, spices, statuettes, stuffed animals… The other, projected on the opposite wall, displays scenes of contemporary daily life along Marco Polo’s route: urban hustle, dense traffic, fabric dying, mountain ranges… Both videos cannot be seen at the same time, the viewer must literally move from a symbolic past to a contemporary present, all while hearing words from history brought to life. Tan asks her viewer to inhabit a complex space, traversing time and space and consequently creating a multiplicity of new meanings.

Fiona Tan, Disorient (still), 2009. Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

At the National Art School Gallery (presented alongside the first Australian display of the work pivotal Canadian animator Norman McLaren), Tan similarly and quite astutely creates a poetic space full of possible meanings between text and representation. A Lapse of Memory features Henry, an isolated old man living like a vagrant in an abandoned palace. The wall outside the video reads: “Henry is waiting for a story he can make his home.” We watch as Henry goes about his day, from morning Tai Chi to the evening meal, from lighting the hallway to cleaning the rug of an old room. There is something fascinating about this old man unattached to a specific place. As a viewer, I became enthralled with his actions, somehow prophetic in senility. The video and the accompanying narrator’s text recount stories of the past while displaying, very simply, a story unfolding from moment to moment. Tan’s aestheticism infuses power into her audiovisual work. In the silences, my mind imagines possibilities, trying to piece together the story told in the space between word and image.

Fiona Tan, A Lapse of Memory (still), 2007. Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

From Shanghai to Istanbul, New York to Paris, London to Berlin, Fiona Tan’s work has travelled the world over. In artistically capturing the complex spaces created by journeys, Tan has tapped into a fundamental space of daily life. What I experience from moment to moment, the overall arc of the story of my life and the spaces created by time, place and memory all make for a very layered human experience. Tan preserves this complexity with her sensitive, intellectual  and confident point-of-view. Her art breathes for itself, inspires spaces of imagination and inspiration and invites you on a journey.

Fiona Tan, A Lapse of Memory (still), 2007. Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

Coming Home will be on exhibit at the Sherman Foundation for Contemporary Art and the National Art School until 12 June, 2010.

Melanie Boreham. Forest of the Inside. Human hair and wire.

Melanie Boreham. Present pasts. Human hair, wire, aluminum, beads and nylon monofilament.

The first gallery of the show The Departed led me to the second room to discover Boreham’s paintings, drawings, videos and additional sculptures. In her exhibit, the 22-year-old multi-disciplinary artist reveals the extent of her exploration of and fascination with hair by unveiling her entire process. While her paintings and drawings reference the styles of Schiele and Klimt (seen more explicitly in her previous work, viewable on her website), Boreham excels in the creation of sculptural objects. A display case exhibits jewelry all woven from human hair, a disturbing and fascinating sight. A nod to exquisite Australian artist Fiona Hall, Boreham’s case weaves and unravels complex human histories and the complexities of display. While I appreciated seeing the entire process of the artist through different media, the multi-media exploration diluted the poetic strength of her work.

Melanie Boreham. Head in the Clouds. Pencil on paper.

The description of The Departed carries the weight of a self-conscious over-intellectualization symptomatic of too much of the arts in Sydney. Boreham claims her hair pieces are about the “anxieties of separation and the breakdown of relationships.” Boreham has rationalized her way too far from the source and seems blind to the poetic strength of her work. Hair is tied up in our identity, is attached to our history. In the past hairstyles connoted status and even today in orthodox religions, hair holds a certain power, needing to be hidden or removed for modesty’s sake. Beyond all that, hair is a very subtle indication of life: it grows slowly; it becomes lustrous when healthy; cyclically, we cut it. Hair, along with nails, grows after death. During WWII, all those in concentration camps had their heads shaved. Where did their hair go? Did it have a life of its own? What happens to all our severed locks? Hair as a subject and material holds immense potency (it was the theme of the first volume of the Sydney-based book project Trunk by Suzanne Boccalatte and Meredith Jones bringing together writing and art). To sculpt severed hair into natural forms speaks to a somewhat morbid yet fascinating reality of life after death. In her choice of material and form, Boreham has unlocked visual poetry.

Melanie Boreham. I left you behind. Watercolour, human hair and rose on wood.

There is a strange and enthralling quality within Boreham’s sculptural work that she must fully trust. In The Departed, the artist is too quick to reveal her process, too quick to over-analyze her mission. She should instead leave her viewer captivated by trusting her sensitive poetic instinct and only revealing the mysterious and ethereal otherworld she has created.

Melanie Boreham’s The Departed will be on view at Hardware Gallery (263 Enmore Road, Sydney, Australia) until April 1, 2010.

The logo of Art Month Sydney 2010.

“It is really a simple idea,” Reid commented at the beginning of our meeting. The idea began with the realization that many talented, creative, and often hidden small galleries do not have the PR resources of big museums or auction houses. Why not bring them all together to speak with a strong, unified voice? Started in January 2009, the initiative grew into a veritable mega-event that aimed to share the great diversity of the Sydney art world and make it accessible to all. Michael commented, comparing Art Month to the Arts and Crafts Movement, “Beauty and design and art are everywhere. It is not a rarefied experience.”

The work of Gemma Smith installed at Sarah Cottier Gallery. Image courtesy of Art Month Sydney.

And the art is definitely everywhere. Just two months ago when I arrived, I lamented the lack of a centralized resource for art events. Art Month has exceeded my expectations and is definitely that cohesive force I was seeking, complete with an easily navigable website, a very active Twitter feed and a blog that keeps discussion lively about Sydney’s art. So far, in its second week, Art Month can already be pronounced a roaring success: the launch party attracted over 500 people, talks about collecting contemporary art and the crossover between art and other fields have been overwhelmingly attended and the weekly Thursday night Art Bar has attracted a younger crowd eager to share a drink and art-inspired conversation.

Stills Gallery's co-director Bronwyn Rennex and gallery manager Kate Sheaffe discussing photography. Image courtesy of Art Month Sydney Blog.

Every weekend, Art Month also provides transportation between galleries in different areas of town (a journey called Follow Your Art). Last weekend’s focus on Paddington and Woollahra caused some galleries to enjoy their highest ever attendance on the weekend. On top of everything already mentioned, galleries are hosting talks from artists and curators and the magazine Art & Australia has created a booklet for children (distributed in primary schools across Sydney) to make the experience fun for the whole family. Art Month is succeeding in reaching kids (& their parents), young adults, aspiring collectors, and is also bringing together artists, galleries, dealers, collectors, auction houses and museums. Not only is Art Month spreading the gospel of the accessibility and fun of art, it is also fostering community and relationships within the art world itself.

Gallerist Tim Olsen talking about the work of John Olsen at Tim Olsen Gallery. Image courtesy of Art Month Sydney Blog.

With over two weeks to go, there is still plenty to be seen and experienced: the colourful work of Gemma Smith at Sarah Cottier Gallery, the fluorescent light environments of aboriginal artist Jonathan Jones at Gallery Barry Keldoulis, an artist talk with Imants Tillers at Roslyn Oxley9, a curator talk about Joseph Kosuth at Anna Schwartz, a discussion about collecting Asian Art at White Rabbit Gallery, and so much more (just check out their website to see the palette of exhibits and events on hand).

Jonathan Jones, Under the aegis, 2006. Fluorescent tubes and fittings. Image courtesy of Art Month Sydney.

While I know Art Month is far from over, I couldn’t help but ask Michael about the future of Art Month. Having developed the necessary infrastructure for the event, there is talk of bringing Art Month to different Australian cities. The website, Twitter feed and blog will continue to be a strong unifying voice in the arts community of Sydney. And there is also talk about further exploring the Creative Collaborations events (talks about the intersection of art and design, architecture, fashion, and food respectively) as well as creating Art Pop Ups (less permanent art galleries that could bring art to different parts of town in a sort of prolonged happening). Whatever the future holds, I think that Michael and Vasili along with the Art Month team have created a wonderful model that can (and should) be adopted beyond Australia. Art Month is catalyzing fresh passion for art, taking away the art world’s air of elitism and inapproachability and, instead, making art fun, accessible and a welcome part of the collective imagination.

Scott Elk, Mardi Gras 2010 Season Posters: Rocco D'Amore as the Gay Clone, Mini Cooper as Marlene Dietrich, and Rob Magee as Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Courtesy of the artist.

As the commissioned creative force behind the poster images of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2010, Scott Elk created six characters to illustrate this year’s broad theme: The History of the World. Recreating and modernizing icons from (gay) history, Elk used styled photos (in which models posed as Neptune, Joan of Arc, the Vitruvian Man, Queen Elizabeth I, Marlene Dietrich and a Tom Finland-like gay clone) to produce historic-looking screen prints complete with a modern graphic edge.   The roughly black, red and white prints on view in their original form at the Mardi Gras Gallery at Tap Gallery until March 6 (and in a modified form on banners and posters) set up a very fertile dialogue between present and past, text and image, and explore ideas of queer history and gender identity.

Scott Elk, History of the World Series: 'Gay Clone' and 'Elizabeth', 2010. Hand Screen prints, 52 x 52 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

In his uncommissioned artistic work, Elk focuses more on the geography of numbers, variations in typography and their relationship to the human world. His hand-painted numbers (numbers being a fount of fascination for the artist) create their own universe. The artist produces multi-faceted work (playing with bingo sheets as a backdrop) that captivates and inspires in its complexity and its brute honesty.

Scott Elk, Detail from 'Cocaine Sex Pest / I Mean I Love You.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Work drawn from Bingo v2.0: The Seedy Underworld of Subculture and Sex by Numbers depicts a landscape where numbers crowd around individuals in various states of undress and involved in different degrees of fetish. The numbered landscape, on large, immersive, life-sized canvases, serves as a metaphor for the degree to which the binary code of computers floods our lives, as well as an exploration of the meaning of numbers in relationships. Previously masterfully installed as a continuous mural at the Urban Uprising Gallery, Elk’s design-inspired work is now broken up but still strike with attitude from the walls of the Clarence Hotel until March 7 and at The Midnight Shift in Saddle Bar indefinitely.

Scott Elk, 'Untitled Beadie 02' and 'I Inherited the Feature Wall From my Mother.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Scott Elk, Detail from 'He Only Loves Me When I'm Leaving Him / I Fucken Love it When He Comes.' Courtesy of artist's website.

Elk’s voice and vision are undeniably strong and unique. The Australian artist is undertaking a very mature exploration of complicated issues of the representation of the body, gay identity and subcultures using his own language of numbers and his own style of imagery. To witness Scott Elk’s work is to become immersed in a fascinating and powerful landscape, one that plumbs the depth of contemporary life in an edgy, honest and modern way.

Scott Elk, 'Closing.' Mixed Media on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

Visit Scott’s website for news of his latest exhibitions. A selection of work is currently on view at the gay club called Midnight Shift in The Saddle Bar, 85 Oxford Street.

Eniac Martínez, Charco cercado. Courtesy of Australian Centre for Photography.

The work of Mexican documentary photographer Eniac Martínez is powerful, moving and profound. In Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (The Royal Road of the Interior), Martínez revisits sites along the over 3000km-long Camino Real (Royal Road) established by Spanish explorers 400 years ago. This road hosted many pivotal moments in Mexico’s history including Hidalgo’s advance on Mexico City, the US invasion of Mexico in 1846-8, Pancho Villa’s offensive in the Revolutionary War, etc. Martínez explores the confluence of times, sometimes creating an impression of 21st century life, sometimes capturing the timeless quality of the land seemingly unchanged since colonial times. We imagine how much has changed, how much hasn’t, and we wonder about the repercussions of colonialism on a people and a landscape.
The images themselves are quite stunning… if you stand far enough away. Printed on a foamcore-like substance, the well-traveled (read: sometimes slightly damaged) inkjet prints are not as fine as they could have been and, consequently, deny the viewer complete entrance. I am saddened by the quality of these prints, knowing full well the power encapsulated in Martínez’s images.

Eniac Martínez, Semanta Santa. Courtesy of Australian Centre for Photography.

The main show entitled Mind Games posited to explore how acts of child’s play mirror the politics of the adult world. Upon inspecting the work and reading the information again, I was unconvinced. The premise of the show seemed tenuous. I failed to see the point of examining how play is charged with the politics of adult life, and how such an exploration contributed to my understanding of modern life.

Suk Kuhn Oh, The Text Book (Chulsoo & Younghee), 2006. Courtesy of Australian Centre for Photography.

The work of Korean photographer Suk Kuhn Oh, for me, fit the “theme” best and had the most mature power. Adapting characters from primary school books, the Korean photographer placed these stereotypical children (now costumed adults) into adult situations. The poignantly lit display allowed for moments of intimacy and quiet shock at Oh’s images in which innocent child-like characters enact displays of a life that is anything but innocent.

The other talent on display at the ACP as part of the Mind Games show was Eric Bridgeman (whose work is also a visual arts highlight for Sydney’s Mardi Gras). On first impression, Bridgeman’s images are both chromatic studies and portraits. People, with their skin painted either snow white or pitch black, stand in a neutral scene surrounded by colours similar to what they are wearing. For me, what was jarring was Bridgeman’s use of blackface. For a North American, this seems like a racial taboo. In Australia, it is somehow innocuous fair game (On the Australian variety show Hey, Hey It’s Saturday! in October 2009, a group performed a tribute to Michael Jackson in blackface, to which guest judge Harry Connick Jr. reacted in suitable outrage, giving the group a 0). Bridgeman, who does have heritage from the Chimbu province of Papua New Guinea, has begun to explore race in a very provocative way. A protégé of the immensely talented Fiona Foley (recently featured in an impressive retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art), Bridgeman has not yet harnessed the power of what he intends to say yet. His portraits have power, yes, but his message is as of yet unclear.

Eric Bridgeman, Boi Boi The Labourer, 2008-09. Courtesy of Australian Centre for Photography.

All in all, my experience at the ACP gave me immense food for thought. However, my thoughtful preoccupation stemmed not from awe at the work but more from the fact that I was fighting to understand both the quality of the printing of the Eniac Martinez exhibit and the intellectual framing of the ACP’s main four-photographer show. While the ACP may not have wholly impressed me, I was happy to be presented with the work of two photographers with powerful work and another with talent full of potential. I do very much look forward to upcoming exhibits and the new talent that the ACP will bring to the fore.

Photographer Eniac Martinez will be speaking at the ACP about his work on February 27 from 1-3 pm. Information can be found here.

Installation view of Tony Birch and Tom Nicholson, Camp Pell Lecture, Artspace, Sydney, 2010. Courtesy of Artspace.

Tamar Guimarães’s slide-work A Man Called Love (2007) provides a portrait of Francisco Candido Xavier, a Brazilian psychic who wrote prolifically and was a famous figure in his country. The Brazilian artist narrates the story of the psychic’s life and inevitably crosses over into issues of race, class and politics of the country from 1964 to 1985. The collection of found photographs and archival images overlap one another. The presentation is fluid, and thoughtful depth exists between the power of the images and the unfolding of a complex history. The slides of political turmoil and protests contain a certain otherworldliness; perhaps their presentation within the life of a psychic imbues the images of smoke-filled streets with a spiritual quality. Ultimately, A Man Called Love leaves the viewer with a multiplicity of meanings, a story unfolds and the paths of interpretation open up.

Installation view of Tamar Guimarães, A Man Called Love, 2007, Artspace, Sydney, 2010. Courtesy of Artspace.

Similarly, the collaboration between historian Tony Birch and artist Tom Nicholson, Camp Pell Lecture (2010; pictured at the beginning of this article), explores diverse histories of a geographic site. Camp Pell, a military camp turned public housing project once in Melbourne’s Royal Park (which has lain unoccupied since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics), is now the site for the new Children’s Hospital. The Australian duo has created a room in which five video/image series project simultaneously along with the reading of five lectures. The lectures, read sporadically (sometimes there is silence, sometimes one voice, and sometimes up to 5 voices), speak of early expeditions, ethnographic displays at the Melbourne Zoo, the military camp and the housing complex turned slum which was eradicated prior to the 1956 Olympics. The result, for the viewer, is a cacophony of history at some moments, and an absence at others. What we see and what we hear only ever denotes a small portion of the history present in a site. Archival images mix with slow-paced videos of the empty site (sometimes seen as a park, other times seen as a construction site), words emerge and overlap. The result is a complicated portrait, a true presentation of the complexity of history.

Installation view of Tony Birch and Tom Nicholson, Camp Pell Lecture, Artspace, Sydney, 2010. Courtesy of Artspace.

Just such a rich and complicated story unfolds in the third space of Artspace through the work of Vancouver-based video/installation artist Jayce Salloum. The space features 10 videos mainly featuring interviews. Salloum’s work (part of an ongoing videotape, Untitled, 1999-present) uncovers histories of locations and locations of histories (to use his phrasing) through one-on-one talks with the displaced. Most poignant (and most salient with the 2010 Olympic Games soon to start in Vancouver) are the interviews with the native people of the Syilx Territory in British Columbia. They speak very frankly of the difficult truths of their contemporary lives as a consequence of the contact with European settlers and the loss of their land. “When we lost that land, we lost a part of ourselves,” one woman quietly states in a conversation about displacement, marginalization, assimilation and loss of a national identity. Conversations with people from Lebanon and Palestine, as well as with natives of New Zealand and Western Canada are interspersed with other videos of natural scenery and interior shots. Salloum thus creates a larger landscape through his installation, the land comes alive through the words of people who have lost their native homes, history rewrites itself.

Installation view of Jayce Salloum, all is not lost but some things may have been misplaced along the way (or) of endings and beginnings and some points in-between, and other works from the ongoing videotape, untitled, 1999-ongoing, Artspace, Sydney, 2010. Courtesy of Artspace.

The wonderfully complex installations at Artspace plumb the depth and complexity of historical revision, enforcing the idea that both reported history and current news need to be questioned and reconsidered. Be sure to explore the multiplicities of histories at Artspace on display up until February 27.

i made this. you play this. we are enemies, a game by Jason Nelson. The still image doesn't begin to capture the animation and noise!

Nelson’s originally from Oklahoma, is a poet, and has a variety of what he calls “art games.” They are word heavy, frenetic and hilarious–with an anti-high tech, DIY look that deceives as it charms. He also has poems, songs and stories that have fun with the interactive quality of internet technology. It’s a perfect way to waste a snowy afternoon.