Shoe Bathers

Presented at Firstdraft. Shoe Bathers is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW

installation, engraved and pierced copper, soap, and sound (25 minutes)
Sound composition: Spencer Anthony Reid

Shoe Bathers conjures up the sensory relationship between body, spirit, and kinship. The warmth of a conversation is ambient and eloquent, a rite to the intimate relationships developed and formed by community and family within the many varied spaces of the bath house both public and private.

The state of transition evoked through the ritual of bathing is recorded in the shaping and forming of piles of handmade olive oil soap by bodies constantly moving back and forward between physical and spiritual centres. Two pairs of engraved and pierced bathing shoes central to the work signal the bath house's long lineage as a ritualised space of cleansing.

Devices for Seeing

28cm L x 11 cm W x 11 cm H (each)

Devices for Seeing considers the history of migration and the use of celestial navigation. The ancient making techniques of piercing and engraving copper are used to evoke the ancestral connection and the insights of antiquity reflected in past celestial navigation objects. Is how we see and what we look for interconnected with our intentions for navigation? The present and potential technological advancements will have far-reaching consequences for our future, and as in the past have influenced the social and political outcomes that lead to the construction of future communities, environment and governance. The sculptures speculate what will navigation of space look like in the late 21st Century, and who will participate culturally in space migration.

Mapping Astronomy

graphite on paper, 150 cm x 460 cm