Memorial/When I was Younger Blacktown Arts Centre, 2007

The installation Memorial/When I was Younger was commissioned by the Blacktown Arts Centre as a response to the history of the former school buildings. The installation was made of several independent works. They were

Memorial/Centenary Celebrations 1971, 2007 paint on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Roll Call Girls 1971, 2007 chalk on fabric 1500 x 920m

Memorial/Roll Call Boys 1971, 2007 chalk on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Roll Call Boys and Girls 1914, 2007 Chalk on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Class Sizes 1929, 2007 Chalk on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Cooking #1 1928, 2007 paint on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Cooking #2 1928, 2007 paint on fabric, 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Telegram to Mr. Wilkins 9th March 1881, 2007 paint on fabric 1500 x 920mm

Memorial/Handmade Dress, 2007 satin ribbon 200 x 150mm each (3 Panels)

Memorial/Class Photos, photographs on paper various years 300 x 210mm each (6 Panels)

Memorial/Cuts 1938, 2007 photographs on paper 300 x 210mm each (6 Panels)

Memorial/Memory of Roll Call, 2007 video and sound 12 minutes 4 seconds

Memorial/When I was Younger, 2007 chalk on blackboard dimensions variable by various artists

For this installation at the former Blacktown Public School I worked with the voices and names of those who worked and were schooled in this building, the oldest surviving building in the Blacktown Central Business District. The art academic Elin Howe wrote in the concluding paragraph of her catalogue essay that ..

‘All of our official histories are under contemporary review and historians are realising that artists, with their focus on subjective experience in memory, are opening new paths to the reinterpretation of history. Davies’ practice is beneficial here because she does not succumb to two of the main pitfalls of this approach – flimsy research and the temptation to aestheticise the material by showcasing her own artistic skill. ‘

Above
Memorial/Class Photos photographs on paper, various years 200 x 150 each - far left hand side

Memorial/Roll Call Girls 1971, 2007, chalk on fabric, 1500 x920mm - middle left hand side

Memorial/Roll Call Boys and Girls 1914, 2007, chalk on fabric 1500 x 920mm - centre

Memorial/Class Photos photographs on paper, various years 200 x 150 each - middle right left hand side

Memoria /Centenary Celebrations 1971, 2007 paint of fabric 1500 x 920mm - far right hand side

Detail below

Memorial/Cuts 1938, 2007 photograph on paper 300 x 210mm

Memorial/Memory of Roll Call, 2007, video and sound, 12 minutes, video still

Memorial / When I was younger, 2007, chalk on blackboard, dimensions variable, various artists

Essay from the exhibition catalogue

Memorial/When I was Younger

Interrogating official history by examining its underbelly is an approach Fiona Davies has expanded and refined over decades of art practice. Her purpose is to get at the untold stories of a site and reveal to us the multi-layered and often conflicting versions of its history. In Memorial/When I was Younger she turns her gaze to the oldest building in Blacktown’s city centre – Blacktown School. Inviting anecdotes from former students, parents, teachers and others involved in the day-to-day events of the school, Davies skillfully positions these voices alongside the official history. Using material gathered from the state archives, she provides us with a glimpse into the official version of events, and then sets out to destabilise its authority by eliciting revealing stories from the participants. Davies’ project is based on a dynamic model of building another version of history which continues and grows throughout the exhibition. Inviting her audience to participate by recalling their memories on a chalk board, Davies ensures that the polyvalent nature of the school’s story continues to be recorded. 

This practice is congruent with contemporary ideas about reinterpreting official histories. Originally constructed using only the voice of the uninvolved dispassionate observer, these official histories edit the subjective experience of the participants to present the so-called objective truth. The model Davies uses in her retelling of histories unearths the subjective voice to breathe life and an emotional veracity into the story. It is these ordinary voices recounting everyday events that draw us in because we recognise their authenticity. 

Starting with archival research, Davies has tracked down people whose names appeared in records, whose faces appeared in photographs, and whose stories emerged through the research process. Involving these people initially she encouraged them to talk about their school experiences. These recollections then became the basis of the exhibition. Using a well-honed technique Davies creates imagery and a context in which the audience wants to add to the story.  

Underpinning Davies’ practice is this ability to create the desire to participate. A key component in this is the very low profile she gives to her own voice. With a keen awareness of the evocative power of the site itself, she selects a few seemingly unremarkable motifs – the individualised copperplate script on the chalkboard; the outsized hair ribbons featured on little girls in class photographs – and presents them to us in such a way that they trigger memory. We gaze at her work without the immediate consciousness that we are looking at art. The invisibility of the art is what gives this work its power. It allows the viewer to unselfconsciously enter into the world being recreated. This approach is a contemporary twist on the Renaissance artist’s practice of representing something so convincingly in a painting that you forgot you were looking at a painting, and were instead drawn into the world of the picture – the artist’s aim was to be so skilled that the skill was invisible. With the coming of the modern period, the artist’s voice/skill was privileged above the content in the work. The audience’s attention was always drawn to the fact that they were looking at something made by the artist. Davies’ approach inverts this process and thus lures us into the world she is recreating by allowing us to remain almost unaware of her hand in the process. 

Her video work demonstrates her philosophical position. Shot from behind the shoulder of a talking head as it looks at a class photo, we see the class photo and the pointing finger of the speaker. Without the invasive objectifying gaze of the camera panning from the photograph back onto the speaker’s face, unselfconscious identification of long buried names tumbles forth. The speaker remains the active subject in the history project and in this empowered position speaks with confidence and authority. Viewers, engaged by this unthreatening approach, also willingly contribute to the process of constructing a multi-layered history. As these ordinary voices are added to the whole picture, the official version’s “objectivity” comes into perspective. An amusing, if somewhat poignant aspect of this revelatory process is unearthed when we recognise that in the past, such was the authority of the official institution, that ordinary people felt constrained to use official-speak in their communications with officialdom, even when the genre was completely inappropriate. A gem from the state archive is a telegram from a teacher requesting compassionate leave on the death of his wife: My wife is dead. Application to inspector in due course.  

Davies has a keen eye for plucking revealing and time-specific nuggets of data from the archive for just this revelatory process. Take for example the 1927 memo to the Supervisor of Cookery at the Department of Education, Miss E. W. Nell, from the nameless teacher of Domestic Science responsible for the subject in the Richmond/Penrith area. Originally grammatically incorrect, although competently laid out and typed, this letter’s corrections remain for posterity, to conjure a time when the typist’s labour was really laborious. The contemporary experience of proof-reading, editing with the click of a mouse, and generating a corrected final print-out with the push of a button was still in the future, and these errors probably remain because there simply wasn’t time for the letter to be retyped in time to catch the next post. These two minor errors remind us of the huge advances in communication technology, while at the same time the content of the memo conjures a time when domestic science formed the basis of the main career option for girls – marriage and family – and was endorsed through the public education system. 

All of our official histories are under contemporary review and historians are realising that artists, with their focus on subjective experience in memory, are opening new paths to the reinterpretation of history. Davies’ practice is beneficial here because she does not succumb to two of the main pitfalls of this approach – flimsy research and the temptation to aestheticise the material by showcasing her own artistic skill. Her research process is rigorous at both levels - archival research and oral history. This thoroughness is matched by her Haiku-like precision when she selects and edits motifs for their evocative power and presents them in her own distinctive spare style. Through her accessible presentation of the marriage of history and art, she raises audience awareness in both disciplines. Thus Memorial/When I was Younger will make a valuable contribution both to the archived history of the school and to the contemporary cultural life of Blacktown community. 

Elin Howe

January 2007