Listen in to the interview with Arts Weekly host Adam and artist Claire Bridge as they discuss VAS HOLOS, an exhibition of works by Claire Bridge, Jia Jia Chen, Katie Stackhouse and Nina Sanadze at Meat Market’s Stables.
The interview commences at around 45 mins into the program.
Transcript of the Interview below
Arts Weekly 3 MBS radio Vas Holos interview
SPEAKERS
Host Adam and artist Claire Bridge
Adam: The wonderful voice of Cesaria Evora and ‘Soldad’. You're listening to 3MBS Arts Weekly and don't forget to subscribe and everybody who's subscribed goes into the drawer to win one of our major prizes and also goes into the draw to win one of the daily prizes and I'll mention what those are coming up shortly but first we have with us in the studio artist Claire Bridge. Claire. Hi, how are you?
Claire: Hi, Adam. It's pleasure to be here.
Adam: Now. Claire, you've got an exhibition on at the North Melbourne meatworks tell us about the tell us about the exhibition. It's you're .. You're showing with three other artists colleagues of yours.
Claire: We've got an exhibition at the Stables which is at Meat Market, and it's myself, artists Jia Jia Chen, Katie Stackhouse, and Nina Sanadze and we've titled the exhibition 'Vas Holos'.
Adam: Which means?
Claire: It comes from the Latin. So we've brought together these two Latin words 'vas' which relates to the vessel or you might have heard of vascular like veins so it's, you know what carries fluids but also as a container. So it has both those connotations. And 'Holos' has a derivation or an etymology around wholeness or coming together. So we're thinking about current times how we come together as a body politic, how we come together around issues in relationship to the environment, to our cultural heritage as well, but also even into our own body, our physical beings and how we relate to that.
Adam: Now, I did go and have a look at your your exhibition and you very you were very kind to actually take me through it, and talk me through the works and gave me a nice little summary of what each artist is doing. So I'm gonna ask you to cast your mind back to that and sort of like, in words, take us through the exhibition of the what's being shown of the four artists. So you walk in, and you start with the works of …?
Claire: We start with Jia Jia Chen which is a beautiful way to enter the space. Jia Jia has created a courtyard or Chinese garden so she's really blended her Chinese heritage, these eastern influences of a garden, a sanctuary, a place of contemplation, and she's created what looks to be similar to a Venetian cistern. So we've got a source, a fountain right there in the middle. So she's relating this also to the Roman courtyard or, you know, living here in a westernized country as well. So bringing together these heritages and focusing on exchange as well. So white gold, porcelain, was considered to be a 'white gold' and amazing source of of wealth that the Europeans wanted to discover how to how to use and how to create as well. So she's playing with the blue and white of this white gold in this set piece, or installation.
Adam: And of course it fits into because it's like obviously, it's both in Chinese culture and you know, that traditional Western culture, like a meeting place where everybody would come and exchange ideas and chat and hang out.
Claire: Very much so. Yeah, so it really does have that sort of place of dialogue and exchange. And from there, we move through a gateway So she's created a real sense of movement into the next space, which is Katie Stackhouse's work who explores forms which are circular like portals or thresholds. And really she's talking about a sense of, of openings, of moving through, of transition and change but also like nurturing and care. So these ideas of how we, how we can move through with each other and in relation to each other.
Adam: And one of the most striking works that that I've that I thought was, what to me looks like a massive gold coin with the center sort of punched out of it in and tell us a little bit about that.
Claire: So this piece, I think it could be, you know, at least about four foot, a meter or so in diameter with a circular kind of hole in the center and gold leaf covered throughout the surface and leaning against limestone blocks which is hand carved. So talking about you know, old deep time, ecology, but also as a portal of possibility. So with this precious material of gold. And around that, there is a video work, which also looks at a massive bronze installation work that she's done the sculptural work, but working with that with musicians and movement. So this interactive and activating way that she has with working with her work.
Adam: Now we move on to what to … well tell us about the connection between the next work and polling booths.
Claire: That's really pertinent work right now and kind of perfect timing ahead of the election. So Nina Sanadze has created a work where she's, we she has a huge video work but with that are seven polling booths, lifesize polling booths, as an installation. So there's this relationship between the physical object of the polling booth perhaps standing in for the person or for democracy, these kinds of connotations, and in the work itself, she's filmed this kind of epic oceanic film with a number of people floating in the water but also these polling booths floating as vessels. Even the people kind of contained within these vessels. So there's ideas perhaps around you know, climate change, climate disasters, flooding ...
Adam: Yes you mentioned the recent floods.
Claire: Yeah
Adam: That's right.
Claire: And choice as well. Our agency with that.
Adam: And to me sort of as as an observer, it looks at it was really quite striking because there's not much movement. I mean, the screen is huge. There's not much movement on the screen. And so sort of like it's quite sort of contemplative. But at the same time, kind of quite disturbing because the you know, the figures floating in the water are all naked. And the polling booths are actually also in the water and one of the figures is actually in one of the polling booths. And they look like coffins floating in the water. So, you know, you can draw your own conclusions about what political, what political comments she's making.
Claire: That's it. Yeah, there's sort of that the sense of beauty but also that fragility or perhaps that catastrophic sense in that as well.
Adam: Now we move on to finally to your work which is primarily ...Are you primarily a ceramic artist because it's primarily a work in ceramics?
Claire: This show is. I tend to be pretty interdisciplinary with my work. So incorporate video work and painting, but ceramic sculptural works is something which I've just been loving doing, especially because it's such an embodied practice. And part of what I do in my practice is I really consider how we embed gestures of repair into daily practice and working with clay with the tearing and pulling apart, bringing it back together, even in the firing process with its potential for cracking and exploding at any time. I've kind of incorporated all of that into these visceral, colorful ruptured surfaces.
Adam: I was just going to say, they're extremely colorful. Can you tell us because when I went and visited we did end up talking a little bit about one of the works which is related to Medusa, and it's really kind of quite a, it's got this sharp, spiky pointy ends coming out of it. Tell us about that.
Claire: Yeah, I think the piece you're describing is, the body of this piece, which is you know, round about, sort of 50 centimeters, quite large, you know, coloured with pinks and yellows, and these gold protruding horns that you talk about, which, you know, people respond to with a little bit of trepidation. And these bulbing kind of forms pushing out of the surface as well. And I was discussing with you this myth of Medusa and I think about you know, the stories that we tell as vessels that carry our beliefs and our thinking and our attitudes to culture over time. This particular one refers to Khrysaor who is one of the children of Medusa. So when her head was s evered by the murderous Perseus, from her neck sprung Pegasus, the winged horse, which many people would be familiar with, but maybe not as familiar with Khrysaor who was a giant but also represented as a boarish creature with these golden tusks. So I wonder you know, if this is something about the wild nature, our grounded kind of chthonic nature represented in this creature.
Adam: Now tell me, because I did pick up some literature from the exhibition, and you're saying you draw on a synthesis of your Indian Assamese and Anglo European heritage's? Tell me a little bit about that.
Claire: Yeah, so I'm a first generation Australian on my father's side. He was born in India and his grandmother is Assamese, his parents both being Anglo Indian also. So I have this heritage which embraces both the colonial British but also the Indian Assamese. S o there's all kinds of influences there. Within some of the works you might have seen, such as the ouroboric form, the torus form, snake and I'm thinking about these aspects of Shakti. The creation aspect, the infinite unfolding of time and the emergence of all that is through these forms, but also possibilities of cultural transformation, personal and cultural and collective. So I'm kind of bringing in these aspects of my own heritage to transform some of those difficult and complex histories, but also bring forward the rich and rewarding and valuable which can be continued into the future.
Adam: Yeah, and I think sort of increasingly as we you know, move forward with sort of a greater acceptance of different cultures and multiculturalism, etc.we're going to see more about I think, you know, frisson between and we are already seeing, of course, frisson between cultures and also interplay. Not necessarily in a negative way, an interplay between between cultures. Like in fact, right from the very first work that you mentioned, the sort of the Chinese and the Western Roman culture.
Claire: Absolutely. And because I see we are in such a time of cultural upheaval and cultural shift, it is a great time to reflect on, where we've come from. And what we want to change and what we do want to retain and value to take forward.
Adam: Now if you want to go and see the exhibition, one more time, it is at the Meat Market's Stables. Now the meat markets huge. so it's on Wreckyn St. And you'll see the entrance to the exhibition. It's near the corner, it's near the roundabout, I think. And so get down. It's at Wreckyn Street, North Melbourne at the Meat Market Stables. And you're going through until tomorrow, I think.
Claire: Tomorrow til 6pm
Adam: So get get down there. You know, be quick. The exhibition is free. Go through, and I should also mention that many of the artworks are for sale. We just thought we'd throw in. Artist Claire Bridge, thank you very much for joining us here. On 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne
Claire: Absolute pleasure.
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