Symbiosis
September 28 2018
Experiencing heavy development and gentrification, West End is in a continuous state of growth and decay. As an outsider, disconnected, I was free to observe present day human and animal interactions within the urban landscape. Many sites I visited and captured in photographs have seen multiple transformations throughout the last century. Empty lots, construction sites, new multi story housing and old abandoned Queenslander style homes arose as rich subject matter.
Wandering the streets of the suburb I delved into the concept that residual energy from these interactions can become built up in the landscape, an idea presented in the paranormal theory Stone Tape; the idea that mental, physical, emotional and/or traumatic impressions from past human or animal activity can become imprinted onto an entity, object or building and locked forever into a place to be later replayed on a continuous loop, a ‘haunting’, despite continuous change and development of the location.
Bury me in Hi-Vis Residency Performance
Bury me in Hi-Vis is an emotionally charged live performance work exploring gentrification and its relation to residual haunting in the context of inner city suburbia. In this work, the artist, dressed in futuristic Hi-Vis work wear, buries a roadkill house cat in the backyard of a West End dwelling. Connecting in with the central concept behind Stone Tape Theory, the artist’s current body of studio work, Bury me in Hi-Vis expresses the idea that mental, physical, emotional and/or traumatic impressions from the past can become imprinted onto an entity and locked forever into a place to be then replayed on a continuous loop (haunting).
A morbid suburban ritual, the performance investigates domestic tragedy and attempts to physically imprint the accumulated but unidentified memories of an anonymous beloved pet into the soil. The burial procedure itself becomes reflective of the nature of development and the cycle of excavation, renovation, construction, and demolition apparent in the ever changing landscape surrounding the performance site. Drawing together the strings of past, present and future to ask the questions: Do your emotions and experiences within a home or place leave a lasting imprint on the land itself? Can we feel residual energy? Can you consciously create a haunting?
SHOWCASE DOCUMENTATION
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Photos by Joseph Lynch, Perception Productions
“Art knows that physical material can express moods, sensations, energies,
impulses and impressions. Just like Stone Tape Theory, art deals in those things
that are processed through the mind, the eye and the gut but don’t make sense
on any graph or table, can’t be quantified on any spreadsheet.”
Performance: Bury Me in Hi-Vis by Adrienne Kenefake
MEET THE ARTISTS!
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: ADRIENNE KENAFAKE
Adrienne Kenafake is a multi-disciplinary artist based on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Working across the mediums of sculpture, performance, installation and video she explores ideas of site, time, interaction, accumulation and destruction within the context of the urban landscape. The anthropological observation of suburban Australia persists as a common thread within her practise connecting her works and projects to her immediate environment and the place she calls home.
In 2014 she exhibited her first solo show, Gutter Gold: Something from Nothing at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, NSW, and has since continued to exhibit locally across the South-East Queensland region in group shows including 2015 SWELL outdoor sculpture festival, Young Heroines in 2017 and 2018 at Maverick Hair and Art Space and in 2017 at the Gold Coast City Gallery following her completion of the Level Up: Youth Arts Incubator Program.
Adrienne has also participated in residencies at Eleventh Avenue Creative, Palm Beach, The Walls Art Space (pilot Micro:AIR) and she is currently artist in residence at House Conspiracy in Brisbane's West End.
CURATOR IN RESIDENCE: CHRISTINE MORROW
Christine Morrow is an Australian artist, curator and writer currently based in Brisbane. She is experienced in gallery directorship, management, curating, lecturing and art criticism. In a twenty year career across roles held in in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, she co-founded and co-directed the artist-run space Blindside in Melbourne, was Curator at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Director of Verge Gallery at University of Sydney and served as Director and CEO of the Australian Experimental Art Foundation. Morrow curated the Australian artists at the Tenth Havana Biennial in Cuba. She has also curated for festivals including the Melbourne Festival, Brisbane Festival, the festival of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, and the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival.
CREDITS:
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Artist in Residence: Adrienne Kenefake
Curator in Residence: Christine Morrow
Showcase Writer: Christine Morrow
Creative Director: Ellie-Lea Jansson
Documentation Photography: Joseph Lynch
Production team: Joseph Burgess
Production team: Angela Timbs