ephemeral art

The Unfurling

| Suzanne
Suzanne Davey The Unfurling 10m x 3m x 2m, recycled clothing, resin, steel

The Unfurling is a large scale site responsive installation of suspended body ‘voids’ created from recyled clothing and resin, harnessing wind and light. The work was exhibited as part of the North Sydney Art Prize 2015 at the Coal Loader Waverton.  The site is located on the shores of Sydney harbour and examines the coast as a place of sanctuary.


The Unfurling is a response to the debate surrounding vulnerable populations arriving on Australian shores and beyond, and the human costs. Individual rights and national interests are given precedence over collective human rights. Tragedy grips people dreaming of sanctuary but who are subjects to forces beyond their control through war, politics and discrimination.
Clothing is utilised as a social and cultural signifier of identity, memory and psychological ties with others. The clothes become traces of the bodies that once occupied them, ‘voids’, and on mass symbolise the collective struggles of vulnerable people. 

Wind choreographs movement in the collective and subjects them to elemental forces beyond their control. The sculptures are translucent and reflect natural light as they move.

The work was inpired by the poems of Mena Johnson, a poet that I collaborated with for the On Islands project at Eramboo Artist Environment.

The Unfurling installation detail On Islands project

The Unfurling installation view On Islands project

The Unfurling installation video showing movement, On Islands project

The Unfurling installation details On Islands project

The Unfurling bushand installation view On Islands project

On the Way to Ithaca: HIDDEN Rookwood Cemetery Sculpture Walk 2013

| Suzanne
Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca, fabric, steel, bamboo, 320 x 350 x 750cm

HIDDEN

On the Way to Ithaca was created for the fifth HIDDEN Rookwood Sculpture Walk held at the Rookwood Cemetery; the largest working cemetery in the southern hemisphere. The exhibition was curated by Cassandra Hard Lawrie. 40 selected artists responded to themes appropriate to the site such as life, love, death, loss, memory and mortality as well as the culture around memorial, eulogy, burial and ceremony.  



ARTIST STATEMENT

Have Ithaca always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years……..

Constantine P Cavafy

However long our life may be our journey is punctuated by many beginnings and ends. These moments are marked in funerary architecture and memorial landscaping by gates, arches and avenues. On the Way to Ithaca is an ethereal response to these forms as we travel between our first and last breaths; our lives shaped by our ties and connections to one another. The installation aims to explore the tension between life and death, and the fragility of life, as we journey towards Ithaca.
Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca, installation detail

Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca

Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca, installation detail
Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca

Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca, installation view from the All Souls Chapel
CREATIVE PROCESS

Suzanne Davey, On the Way to Ithaca proposal drawing

On the Way to Ithaca, developing the work in studio

On the Way to Ithaca, installation on site

Wind Songs: Art In Odd Places

| Suzanne
Suzanne Davey, Christina Frank, Lisa Marshall, Wind Songs, umbrella covers, thread, dimensions variable
 
WIND SONGS is a public art project created by Suzanne Davey, Christina Frank and Lisa Marshall for Art in Odd Places Australia 2013 exhibited 14-15 September Dee Why Beach, 21-22 September Manly Beach.

WIND SONGS is a dynamic, colourful installation that uses an everyday object, the humble umbrella, and transforms it from the ordinary into the extraordinary. A mass of umbrellas have been de-constructed and re-configured in new and surprising ways. The ‘fly away’ work responds directly to the elemental landscape of Manly and Dee Why. Floating in the sea breeze it sings songs about fragility, struggles and the power of transformation.



Wind Songs Dee Why Beach
 
 
Wind Songs Manly 
 
Project Rationale: Umbrellas are utilitarian objects charged with memories and a myriad of metaphorical possibilities. Nostalgia for summer holidays at the beach, fresh sea breezes, life saving flags, experiences of wild storms, rain and wind and our basic human need for shelter and protection are all evoked by the humble umbrella.
 
Umbrellas are also delicate and fragile objects. In strong winds umbrellas have a tendency to ‘fly away’ and de-construct. On windy days at the beach runaway umbrellas cartwheel dangerously across the sand. On wild wet days locations such as the Manly Corso are littered with discarded rain umbrellas, sad and forlorn, inside out and broken.
 
The installation is a large colourful, geometric canopy/banner/structure constructed from found and collected umbrellas and arranged together in a tessellated pattern. The installation responds directly to sea breezes, creates bold shadows patterns on surfaces and creatively expresses the umbrella’stendency to ‘fly away’ in response to wind. Through its dynamic composition, its re-construction and final transformation of multiple umbrellas into a new form Wind Songscan remind the viewer of…….
  • the fragility of life
  • being in the moment, the brevity of life
  • everyday struggles: weathering storms, the whirl of life, the risk of the things we depend on de-constructing and flying away.
  • transformation and re-ordering eg: moving through major personal changes or crises
  • memories and nostalgia for summer holidays, childhood, beach days

Wind Songs project proposal drawing
 

On the Edge: Coal Loader Waverton

| Suzanne
bamboo, fishing line, paint, fabric, 70 cm h x 450cm l x 180cm w
On the Edge is an ephemeral kinetic installation exploring balance and counterbalance in the elemental landscape; the ebb and flow of tides, bobbing boats and floating buoys, and the waft of sea breezes. Inspired by the movement of cranes, it responds to the Coal Loader as a site that seeks equilibrium between its industrial heritage, community usage and as a delicate ecosystem on the edge of the harbour.

A site responsive work exhibited at the Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability, Waverton for The North Sydney Art Prize: toward 2020 exhibition 27 July – 5 August 2013



ADRIFT in Manly

| Suzanne

ADRIFT, recycled polystyrene, fishing line, glow in the dark paint, bamboo
3.5 m x 4.5 m x  2 m

ADRIFT is an ephemeral public art installation created in response to Manly Esplanade; its physical qualities, and the way people interact with, and utilise the site. 

It was exhibited as part of ‘SEE: Manly Public Art Project’ along with the work of 23 artists. The project was the result of a collaboration between Eramboo Artist Environment, Manly Art Gallery and Museum and Kendal Henry, an innovative New York artist and public art curator. 

ADRIFT, recycled polystyrene, fishing line, glow in the dark paint, bamboo
3.5 m x 4.5 m x  2 m


About ADRIFT:
Manly Esplanade is a site where drifting occurs, both seen and unseen. The ebb and flow of tourists, weekenders, commuters, ferry’s and boats, wind and water is a constant. It provides escape from the day to day, respite for many socially disadvantaged people and is a site of rescue for some. Along with escapist play and respite comes the flotsam and jetsam of broken boogie boards, surfboards, fishing floats and line, esky’s and buoys drifting on ocean currents. 


These leave a dark aftermath: lethal litter for birds and sea creatures and toxic chemicals for our food chain. 

Threaded polystyrene shards (like ‘neptunes beads’ seaweed,  pearls, swimming lanes) respond gently to air currents. At night the installation glows, referencing the phosphorescence of the sea which carries the lethal drift ashore.


It started with a broken surfboard shard washed ashore and blowing around the Manly Esplanade.


Recycled polystyrene was collected and completely sealed to prevent further environmental damage.




 The coated shards were threaded on fishing line, arranged in an ‘ocean current’ pattern 
and painted with glow in the dark paint.
The final size of the installation was adjusted to the dimensions of the site.

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