Group exhibition at Parkville Campus, The University of Melbourne, 2008
‘Constellations’ was the public installation exhibition that marked the culmination of the final installation project for 3rd Year Bachelor of Creative Arts students at The University of Melbourne, who were studying the ‘Installation and Superfictions’ subject. This introduced visual media students to installation art and the concept of Superfiction. The site-specific installation aimed to explore the connection between visual media and architecture, as well as the relationship between curating and site-specific visual media objects. This exploration involved research into the appropriate use of materials, techniques, and processes in research plans and models.
Each charcoal portrait is a self-contained narrative, symbolising a woman’s unique identity. Hung on a clothesline, the tea towels evoke the communal act of “doing the laundry” in less developed societies. This arrangement metaphorically cleanses and exposes shared experiences. The portraits on a single laundry line reflect society’s unified yet fragmented nature, emphasising the repetitive chore, and the women blending into their community. The public clothesline signifies global unity and also mirrors the multicultural local society of The University of Melbourne’s South Lawn. The installation explores narrative, memory, and “superfictions,” typical of Conceptual Art, prioritising the artwork’s concept over traditional aesthetics.
‘Indian Women Lining the Laundry’ (2008) explores the domestic role of Indian women and their traditional statuses within society. The installation comprises sixty fictional portraits depicting exotic Indian women and children engaged in domestic chores in their village, reflecting the close association between household duties and women’s roles in various societies.
The portraits are created with charcoal, pen, and ink on paper, and they are then transferred to fabric using an iron-on transfer technique. The quality of the transfer depends on the clarity of the source image. To ensure visually evocative images, it was necessary for the drawings to have clear features and high contrast. Images that are too dark tend to “bleed,” especially on thin, non-absorbent fabric. This technique ensures colour retention and durability when washed, making it ideal for withstanding unfavourable weather conditions in the installation.
The project questioned the nature of an installation, whether it’s a genre, style, or medium. For me, an installation is the creation of an environment subjected to space and time, interacting with the public. Rooted in Minimalism, installation art explores the materiality of the medium, influencing how the arrangement embodies the message. Terms like “temporary art” and “environment” describe its ephemerality. The transient nature of the medium is reflected in the changeable clothesline arrangement. Immersion in the work and its environment questions the separation or unification of art and life, perceiving the installation as the environment itself.
This installation is influenced by the 1960s Conceptual Art movement. Artists like Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, and Douglas Huebler emphasised the idea of the work. The Mattress Factory, a contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh, inspired the object ensemble, denying medium specificity. The museum presents art in room-sized environments engaging the senses. Artists like Wang Youshen, Wu Mali, and L’ubo Stacho inspired thematic concerns with narrative and identity. Additionally, the aims of Environmental Art, using the site as a creative catalyst, induced the situational qualities of the work. The meaning of the installation has a contingent relationship with its surroundings.
‘Indian Women Lining the Laundry’ intentionally blurs the boundaries between fiction and fact, exploring the notion of ‘superfictions.’ ‘Identity fictions’ are popular in recent artistic practice. German sculptor Iris Häussler produces immersive installations with fictional narratives exploring concepts of social and physical origins. Similarly, Mary Schepisi’s ‘Speculations’ (2004) consists of portraits of women from all walks of life, encouraging viewers to match fictional biographies to the portraits. Schepisi’s watercolour and ink portraits reveal how different women form our commonality, allowing viewers to impose their interpretations on the portraits.
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