Babel is a word-based collection of fine porcelain and paper works. This collection of short texts constitutes a series of incantations, codes and instructions scrolled around porcelain bones or thin spines. The porcelain bones are internal structures and vessels of ancestor memory. This memory is fluid, is evasive, is aquatic. The thin spines resemble futuristic Towers of Babel reaching into space, anticipating communication and new frontiers. These towers have either an upright or collapsed form.
In the making, both forms build toward new possibility, words become obscured, resulting in a non-defined beginning or end, now replaced by chance permutations of the accumulated text.
The sculptural works are deliberately placed onto two large scale text based charts. Each chart is placed on a raised surface, analogous to work benches in an observatory or laboratory suggesting a process of decipherment. Map 1 exhibits a similarity to ancient star charts, the placement of towers alluding to significant points of a constellation. The accompanying Chart 2 resembles an organised series of archeological artefacts, each piece methodically numbered and labelled.
Ultimately, Babel evokes a spiral passage both outward and inward. To unravel the scrolls initiates a return to the spine – the axis mundi, the source of a universal native tongue – love.
Opening Thursday 30 April, 6-8pm. Artist talks 5:30pm.
Babel is sponsored by
About the artist
Natasha Dusenjko lives in Hepburn Springs, Victoria. Natasha has completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours (University of Ballarat). She has exhibited in solo and group shows within Melbourne and regional Victoria. Her art/text work has appeared in The Starving Artist (Newstead Press) and e-book The Material Poem (http://www.nongeneric.net/). Most recently, Natasha’s word-based ceramic work titled bone ancestor II was accepted as a finalist in the 2009 Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art Award. This work was previously exhibited along with art/TEXT publication How to do Words with Things by Patrick Jones and Peter O’Mara, at the 2008 Daylesford Words In Winter festival.
