Megan Evans - Artist

Saturday, November 14, 2015

TREATMENT a public art project in Werribee

TREATMENT is a two day art experience on a bus to witness the work of six artists who have responded to the Melbourne Water Western Treatment Plant. Curated by Professor David Cross and Dr Cameron Bishop the following artists participated.

Over a five month period we all researched the site and come up with our response. My work is in the Water Tower which was the first reservoir in Melbourne built in 1854 and sited on Eastern Hill, approximately the current site of the Australian Catholic University. It was moved to Cocoroc the township at the Werribee sewage farm, as it was then called in 1893.

I took this as infrastructure of colonisation and approached my object and sound installation from this perspective, keeping the project inside the larger body of work I am doing titled KELOID which looks at how to take personal responsibility for the actions of my ancestors who were early colonisers.

I replicated the signage on the tower with my personal perspective. It contains an image of my Great great Grandfathers immigration papers as well as a quote from a 'squatter' Neil Black from 1839, among other things.

The space under the tower was blacked out and a sound installation of dripping water, running water and an occasional gun shot could be heard along with a haunting rendition of Waltzing Matilda played on a small music machine which was attached to one of the objects in the installation.

It was described by people as haunting and macabre.

Not Guilty - the defence of the bottom dog

Christened

Family Silver

Red rabbit

Whitefella

Heritage

Catherine Bell's work was next to the Water Tower and was an intervention into the dilapidated swimming pool for the ghost town that once inhabited 600 people. She included a video and sound installation using original video of children swimming in the pool projected into the change rooms that were littered with detritus and leaves. Also haunting.

Techa Noble made work that turned the base purpose of the plant into something sublime, creating extraordinary costumes using the diving suits used to work on sections of the plant in the case of breakdowns. She had performers who appeared to the bus travellers as the bus moved through sections of the plant rarely seen by the public.

Shane McGrath researched the history of the Cocoroc football team and reconstructed the team for the day with replica jerseys and the team song played on the bus. Visitors stopped to see the players leave the field and then be locked out of the old club rooms while the coach gave his speech loudly enough for everyone to over hear.

Friday, August 21, 2015

London Summer Intensive

The London Summer Intensive has bought together 21 artists from 13 countries to work intensely for a moth in London. It has been an amazing experience with so many new ideas springing from it. As we near the end I am finding myself a little overwhelmed by the various tracks I want to pursue and look forward to some slower and more sustainable work in the studio when I get home. I have been working a little frenetically inspired by the environment and the people and have produced a lot of work in a short time. It is work in progress but some things will come from it that I am happy with.
Here are some examples.

This is a still from a three screen video work I am still completing.

A still from the video. This is a thimble I found at a market in Portobello Rd. It wags at you in the video and I also use it when I embroider the stains in my christening dress.

This was the first work I did. It was after a conversation with Jefford Harrigan who is the program co-ordinator and also an interesting artist. He introduced me to the concept of Collapsed Histories which named what I feel I have been doing. This work was a meditation on Durer's Hare which relates to a story he told me about Joseph Beuys. I had always wondered how Beuys dealt with the fact that he had been a fighter pilot for the Nazi's in the Second World War. Jefford said Beuys had tried to find something in his culture that hadn't been corrupted by Nazism and came to the conclusion that Durer's drawing of the hare couldn't be blamed for the rise of Nazism so he did his piece 'Explaining pictures to a dead hare' as a tribute to that work and as an attempt to begin again. I decided to meditate on whether there was anything in my culture that was uncorrupted by colonisation while I drew these pictures. As it may be evident, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing that was uncorrupted.

One of the best things about the residency has been the visiting artists who we have been able to meet and discuss our work with. Three particularly useful people for me were Faisal Abdu 'allah, Simon Faithfull and Harold Offeh. I have had the opportunity to speak in depth with them about my project and have had lots of interesting comments as well as lots of encouragement about what I am doing.