BRITNEY SAYWELL

Talk week 2022 hosted by A.U.T. celebrated and discussed the wok of visual art student from level 3 BVA, Masters and PhD students. I attended a range of students’ work at Talk Week. Here I speak to two specific viewing of works.

1 Theo Mccdonald

I first viewed failed sketch speaking to the rocket lab and its involvement in a nuclear war. We began viewing a film. The term ’film’ is not the correct term. The work itself seems to fail in many ways including the confusion around, ‘what is this?’ the relations mention: Gothic as isolation – colonial gothic addressing occupations – Anachronistic international films (silent film) – gallery film – propaganda war films. The subject of the film was a house sitting in a picturesque landscape. Moving from projections of water or fire on the house to blocks of moving text in varying fonts. The subject was considered wishy-washy by artist Phil Dadson. I agree with this statement. I could not gauge a clear message or capture anything close to what the artist would later mention. I must include the shared understanding that the artist held. He could not consider his work finished and had lacking confidence in it.

The Artist’s Intention: To point to the blatant disregard and lacking knowledge around New Zealand’s involvement in a possible future nuclear war. A response from the artist to his concern for how the future will be affected by military and political powers.

An artist needs to consider the knowledge or lack of knowledge an audience member may bring into a space. From here they can do with the differing knowledge as they like but it must be considered and approached with intentionality.

This work missed that element entirely. From a viewing position outside of the shared knowledge between the main participants being the artist himself, Ziggy Lever, and Phil Dadson. The work spoke to a time of world war that was lost to the younger audience. Even saying things, I believe it wasn’t lost because of our lack of experiential knowledge of our youth. Rather, the artist fails to present or question concepts regarding the intention he shared later with us. The room held a tricky tension between the artist, invited artists, and the viewers. Though humanity was shared as this tension was resolved on an end note of laughter.

2

Another Talk I viewed was a refined work titled, ‘The vases that I made into giant soup’ by Naomi Allan. Introduced to the artist’s desire to create room for the inner thoughts and unexpressed emotions from joy to anger and everything in between. This is specifically addressed through doodles, sketches, or silly phrases. Gestures that accompanied the main body of work were a Doodle Zine for each audience member and a table that Allan and her sisters had used as their family drawing table. The illustration on the table is a way to work out emotion. The sisters would illustrate their emotions and then they would spin the table so the other sister could read their emotions.

This shared story grounds the work well as it is an experience that the work stems from. The artists’ main body of work is a collection of ceramic vases that have been through a bisk fire and then partially doodled on (additional doodles yet to be done by audiences). The vases range in size and form. The intention is to capture the emotion through a glazing fire in the kiln.

The artwork is a labour of love, an act of hospitality to the well-being of the audience. The artist expresses her moral, “whatever you do needs to serve someone else.”

The nature of this artwork is quite improvisational as you are unable to control the emotions expressed onto the shared vessels. Naomi Allen carries a specific aesthetic consideration as she plays with the balance between the subtle base colours of vessels and the colour of the writing tools provided to the audience. Allen holds the role of a provider in her installation. The vessels are handmade by Naomi as though to be the form to hold the big emotions of those who come in an out of her install space. I see the compassion expressed in the works inviting presence and through the demine of the artist. This lack of separation is risky when placing your heart into an artwork. Saying this I consider the value of this work to lie in the expression of care that Allen holds for the average stranger’s struggle. The main takeaway from the work was the power of collaborative doodles and their ability to build bridges between the worlds of strangers.