Last Seen, 2017, As installed at Casula Arts Centre as the First Turbine Hall Commission curated by Lizzy Marshall
Last Seen, 2017, As installed at Casula Arts Centre as the First Turbine Hall Commission curated by Lizzy Marshall
This work refers and responds to the physical conditions of the space both in terms of its physical attributes and its usage.
The turbine hall at Casula Powerhouse is the first space entered by the visitor. It is a large, apparently empty space. It could be described on the ground floor as an area of multiple points of transition and multiple points of decision making, some of which relate directly to the architecture and some to the usual patterns or paths of passage in this architectural space that result in an invisible crisscrossing pattern at this level.. The most overt point of transition is at the point of entry from the outside to inside followed by less obvious points of transition over the entire ground floor level. The visitor traffic is forced to the perimeters at the mezzanine level with the upper level tantalisingly out of reach to the museum visitor. All of the viewers in this hall are aware of the scale of the space.
The central theoretical concern of my project Blood on Silk is medicalised death in ICU The points of transition in this event or process start from the same place of coming through the entry doors either through emergency or the main entry doors. Layers of points of transition are then built up through , the controls of the visitor entry into ICU, going through the swing doors into the operating theatres and even when the flowers beside the bed start to die. In the turbine hall points of transition will be overlaid onto the existing complexity of the floor level patternings of use. The videos projected onto the silk paper will inscribe additional evidence of points of transitions in others lives. These figures seen from the back will be partially recognised and partially anonymous.
Lying on your back with the hospital curtains drawn, you look up at the ceiling. You notice the curved corners of the curtain track, the texture and opacity of the curtains made of silk paper and the imperfection of the visual and aural privacy offered. In the installation Blood on Silk: Last seen the physicality of hospital spaces, both those central to the process of treatment and those liminal spaces, such as the half-lit corridors at midnight, are overlaid with the emotional landscape of the users of those spaces. The beauty of the silk paper curtains butts up against the forgotten and brutal aesthetics of the ceiling.
STEVE DOW in Art Guide Australia, 27 July 2017
Blood on Silk turns the spotlight on dying
It didn’t end well. This is perhaps a given whenever a dying loved-one enters an intensive care unit. Western Sydney artist Fiona Davies found, some years ago, that when her father’s condition became a heavily medicalised case the hospital placed little emphasis on dying in the palliative sense. All effort was made to prolong life.
“It lasted several months,” says Davies, who has been making art inspired by her experience with her father since the mid-2000s. “Dad was considered at the tipping point, between life and death. That’s the only reason you stay in intensive care.” As a family member of the patient “that’s a long time to be on that level of adrenaline,” she laughs, ruefully.
For her solo show Blood on Silk: Last Seen Davies has used 800 square metres of handmade silk paper to kit-out the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre turbine hall, transforming the space into five makeshift hospital rooms. Images are projected onto the paper to recreate the bustle of a hospital, although the work is abstract enough to invite multiple interpretations.
Blood on Silk: Last Seen is the inaugural commission for the giant turbine hall. And considering that Western culture tends to shroud death with embalming cosmetics and keep it behind closed doors, Davies hopes her work will spark conversations about end-of-life decisions and dying.
“The surreal nature of that experience reinforces on one level the great intention of hospitals: to make people better. And overlaid with that is the workplace of the hospital and the desolation of the non-spaces of the hospital,” says Davies.
“When you are with someone in intensive care, you quite often spend a lot of time being asked to step outside while the nurses or doctors do something. Sometimes that is in the middle of the night. The corridors are shadowy and there are just the vending machines; nobody else is there. I became very interested in that liminal space,” she explains.
Given that people are often repelled by death and indeed hospitals, it might seem like a difficult subject to tackle. But Davies says, “It’s an easy sell, in lots of ways. While people may have an aversion to talking about death in large groups, on a small group or an individual basis people are very keen to share their experiences. Particularly after I’ve talked about my experiences in the hospital.”
Emotionally, the subject matter is interesting for an artist, says Davies, given that it is not commonly discussed. “If you start to look at the definitions of death, it is really interesting to try and pull that apart,” she explains. “As an artist, I can make works that address contemporary medical practices, and the emotional landscape of those workplaces. I find that particularly rewarding.”
Death is a big topic and Blood on Silk: Last Seen is massive: 13.8 metres high, 13 metres wide and 30 metres deep. For Davies, making the work has been a cathartic experience. And she adds, “To make it that big, I think, has increased the emotional impact.”
Blood on Silk: Last Seen
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
21 July – 17 September
While the Last Seen installation was up the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre hosted The Space of the Biomedical Body Symposium which was presented by the New Materialism in Contemporary Art Research Cluster from the Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney. The presenters were Fiona Davies, John A Douglas, Danica Knezevic, Dr Ryan Jefferies, Lizzy Marshall and Helen Pynor.
The symposium investigated the intersections of contemporary art and medical science within and around the medical body.
The Curator Lizzy Marshall wrote in the symposium handout that ‘Blood on Silk: Last Seen is a powerful agent for cross disciplinary discourse incorporating temporality, liminality, new materiality, biomedical concerns, intersections of the public and the private, the cultural to the emotional landscape. More poignant is the capactiry for Davies’ work to create a transaction between the artwork and active audience engagement creating lasting resonannce through internal dialogues.
In this video, the work Blood on Silk: Last Seen is the first of three works discussed.