3rdyearstuff

[3rdyearstuff]

Final

I added the index file box back in to add context about the void of information.

[3rdyearstuff]

[3rdyearstuff]

Eugene said he prefered the frames against the wall. I moved them back there and decided whether losing the barrier they created in the circle arrangment changed things. After looking at this for a while I decided the row of bundles better related to my IPO and I also like that they relate to the lineup of babies seen in the b/w photo.

[3rdyearstuff]

[3rdyearstuff]

arranged as a barrier to the “blank” placenta

I like how this arrangement would make the viewer hesitant to go near the hanging placenta. Like a barrier.  I also like that the indents/curves and compressed middles of the bundles can be seen better from different angles especially in the photo below.

This partial circle also reminds me of Mikala Dwyers format in some of her works.

the bundles privilege the placenta as the center

In this photo I added the index box but I don’t think it works with the frames arranged in the curve.

[3rdyearstuff]

The bundles - stuffed, crushed and strapped to the frames.

Each one has their own arrangement of different materials textures and shapes though relate to each other through the use of the metallic compartments.

The mesh structure provided by the filing trays are a way to contain the objects within, like the adoption law did by suppressing their full identities.

some of the things contained within is birthday party paraphernalia, or objects that might comfort like here with the little hot water bottle and soft toys but only certain body parts are peaking out - limbs not heads.

I probably could have compressed the items in the files more?  I like the rubber  bungee cords and how there is a sort of residue on the darker coloured ones, like an after birth residue. The yellow one is my favorite, its goes another tiny step into the less serious. Some of the bundles have a sewn felt letter included which sofly eludes to (birth) identity.

I couldn’t resist popping this clock in, unfortunately its hard to see the screen face with the “ : “ flashing to show depict the passing of time.

All the mesh fabric sleeves (which are unravelled bath scrubbing puffs) add another subtle barrier to the information within the bundle.

[3rdyearstuff]

Had a thought that instead of swaddles to sit atop of the frames, that I could make bundles of constrained parcels using metal filing boxes and fill them with lots of colourful stuff that are almost familiar objects. These objects could represent stories and histories that come with whakapapa and kin when you are born. While arranging them I imagined I was packing for a baby I wouldn’t see again so tried to add  (pretend) “whakapapa content” for their lifes journey.

[3rdyearstuff]

unscrewed seat pads from frame. The structure looks alittle less like a chair and I like the rectangular hole it leaves.

I found some wool packaging insulation and shoved cardboard inbetween the layers to stiffen it and make this hollow swaddle shape.

I like all the frames lined up, I need to get rid of the black leg ends, they are a little distracting. I kind of like the idea of just one swaddled frame amongst the empty ones, it looks abandoned and unwanted - but thats not really what this work is about so I’ll move on.

[3rdyearstuff]

tests

I went to the 2nd hand shop and got some grey fabric. I don’t really like  how grey this looks.

testing the idea of covering the stool seatpad.  I don’t like it I think I’ll remove the seatpads.

[3rdyearstuff]

blurb from IPO

Since my initial IPO submission which was about “Nau mai place”, I have now narrowed the focus to specific issues which surround adoption in Aotearoa.

In my project I explore a culturally specific diaspora caused by “Closed stranger” adoption and its severing of whakapapa and knowledge of whenua.

In te ao Māori, whakapapa and knowing where you come from are paramount in identifying as Māori. The “Closed stranger” adoption law from 1955 to 1985 enforced a “complete break” between adoptive and birth families. As if the shroud of shame and secrecy was not already enough, for babies of Māori descent, like myself, there is a cultural dilemma in understanding ones place within the framework of whakapapa and whenua. While I have known my whakapapa since my mid-20s, there is no lived experience within the land of my whakapapa and whenua because the State placed me into a an iwi where I don’t have blood or natural descent ties and the effects of this disconnection are reproduced with each successive generation.

 Background: (200-300 words):

My IPO last semester centred on the complexity of identity and feminism in relation to my personal history. The work had metaphorical relationships to the IPO, the “mashing up” of identity, disruptions in my beliefs around different types of art materials and processes. It was a somewhat scatter gun experimental approach and my final work (below) reminded Jenny Gillam of ‘shrapnel’. For me the work represents a wrestle with the complexity of identity, about consciously and unconsciously conforming but wanting to break through all that.

Informing this IPO, I look at the customary practice of returning the placenta to the whenua, back into the tribal land. Symbolically, this is about my whenua (placenta) never being returned to the land, its blankness, and its effect of erasing knowledge of place and kinship because of the severing “complete break” assimilation strategies of the adoption legislation.

Also informing the work I’ll look at how this identity deficit contributed to habitual dreams about all the possibilities of where I was from. I imagine the land, the places and the people, and wonder about histories and legacies though the reality being I, and it follows that my children do too, have missed out on this knowledge and lived experience of relationship to the place and people of my whakapapa.

For this project I will likely use materials from around the house rather than formal materials. Years of domesticity and mothering have afforded me a familiarity with the qualities of ubiquitous household items. I’m open to the possibilities of the ready made and found objects especially those with intriguing qualities that hold subjective opportunities for narrative and meaning.

[3rdyearstuff]

sweep, clean and paint the floor, mask it off.

[3rdyearstuff]

[3rdyearstuff]

P. Mule

cold, depressing, warehouse, basement, abandoned, utilitarian space

[3rdyearstuff]

more Jessica Stokeholder

I’m getting a feminine vibe with the pink and circles. i like the stretched material and inverted drink bottle piece on the wall and the weight upstand. Oh i see bungee cords!  painted sections, carefully random

[3rdyearstuff]

Index

I found this great index box, dividers and cards. They are a really good pointer to the information void in closed stranger adoptions, so if I use it I need to leave the cards blank.

[3rdyearstuff]

[3rdyearstuff]

The white hanging sculpture is a way to present a hovering, identityless, whakapapaless, bloodless whenua.

I like how the balloon in the bag lets light through but creates form. 

I don’t like the stools under the window though because it makes the window a big part of the setting and dilutes the context.

meh I don’t like the use of the chain, alittle to dramatic and oppressive and obvious. I kinda like the matting here but maybe too literal in the sense that it could lead people to think of it as suggesting a little kakahu.