F. Eight Houses of
In 2015, starting with the production of eight bases cut from a piece of salvaged timber, I decided I would make some works that were more overtly architectural than the sets of models I had been making post 2007. Inventing and rejecting a few alternative ideas, I settled on a collection of refurbished titles which had antecedents over a decade old, and which had variously been called either temples or chambers. They now manifested under the rubric of ‘House of …’ as it seemed a term of greater ambiguity and flexibility. As previously, and subsequently, the entertainment of generating titles results in excess.
Ruminations about titles draws attention to the reality that the title provides a broad brief for the work. Having decided to build something with a given title, in each instance I needed some concept of what one might be if I was to make a model at least loosely deriving from it. This was more-or-less a return to the strategies I employed in the Prelude set of pavilions.
The architectural input varied from exploring a period of architecture – for example Arts and Crafts – to quotes from particular buildings, to deriving characteristics from one building or type. Mostly the title preceded any form-giving, but there were also instances of formal ideas in search of a title or evolving and refining together.
37 House of Difficult Memories
This house was begun with an ill-formed idea of a sheltering shape. The impetus was the Australian Parliament’s apology to the survivors and victims of child sexual abuse on 22 October 2018. There were numerous articles in the press covering aspects of the abuse of children by members of the clergy and others.
The title embraces many other difficult memories – those of refugees, of victims of domestic violence, or survivors of racial ‘cleansing’. The list is long; the provocations for the viewer in this model allusive and potentially ambiguous.
The suspended shape may threaten or shelter. Possibly it is a boat, its upper surface shaped by rivulets of tears. There is a surrounding fence keeping danger out or the inhabitants incarcerated. Are its uprights firmly in place or symbolically self-erected – their spacing allowing both easy passage and fragile protection? The tragic historic gateway has the proportions of the central entrance tower to Auschwitz II (Birkenau). It frames the journey inward to places of hiding, horror, respite or retention. One might be a dull red train truck on its line to the gateway; others might be shipping containers. Above, the red arch takes its place in a world littered with red arches. Many of them support a bridge promising transition or escape.
Base: 129mm x 103mm. Model: 133mm x 113mm. Height: 112mm.
Initiated: 22 October 2018. Constructed: 24 November 2018 – 21 August 2019.