Wellington NZ  
 






Monique Redmond: Inhabitants
11 - 21 October 2005

Populating three distinct locations in the Old Museum Building, Massey Wellington, Monique Redmond's multi-sited installation Inhabitants comprised a series of allied interventions characterised by the abundant presence and showy confidence of plant-matter in bloom. Her plant communities - both real and documented - infiltrated and occupied these institutionalised territories, suggesting new possibilities for viewing, encounter and use.

Established via an ongoing investigation into suburban experience, plants have formed an important component in Redmond's work of the last decade - featuring primarily as human personifications; identifiers of place or markers of time. Attracted to the sculptural qualities of flowering trees and plants, Redmond's engagement with plant-matter likewise pivots on an acknowledgement of the animate presence and living culture of plants. For Redmond, "Plants people space; they take up residence; assert presence and personality; and quietly, but confidently, observe or demand observance. This project plays on those relationships that plants themselves determine with the people and places they inhabit."

Juxtaposing local invasive species with introduced varieties prized by suburban gardeners, Inhabitants formed a compelling commentary on the value of plants as socially, culturally and regionally determined. Rather than reinforcing stereotypes, Redmond focused on her subjects as objects of display - engendered by their own unique and self-determined beauty.






David Clegg: archivedestruct
July - August 2005

Using it concurrently as a site for the production and presentation of new work - David Clegg took up office in the Litmus research space with his interdisciplinary project archivedestruct. Presented as an interactive installation in continual flux, archivedestruct was open to the public throughout the period of its making.

Using text, image and audio materials collected daily from Wellington's urban spaces, Clegg processed his data as printed matter and audio CDs - offering these in the form of an open-ended and flexible archive.

Rather than accepting the accuracy or factual value of the archive, Clegg's project exposed the unreliability of evidence - playing on the capacity of records to simultaneously inform and mislead, to locate and misguide. Offering unusually wide margins for translation, archivedestruct provided users with an actively expanding grid of information through which real and fictive itineraries or narratives could be plotted.

David Clegg was the Massey University/Rita Angus visual artist-in-residence from 11 July - 5 August. A complete edition of the archivedestruct project is a founding contribution to the Litmus archive and library.

www.archivedestruct.com






Sit Talk Look Write: new work by Simon Morris
28 May - 8 July 2005

Occupying and delineating the Litmus facility, the inaugural Litmus project, Sit Talk Look Write formed a self-conscious response to the Litmus initiative's space and proposition. Commissioned to coincide with the public launch of Litmus, Sit Talk Look Write radically transformed what was previously a standard and anonymous office space within the administrative annex of the College of Creative Arts, vitalising it as an active environment for research, discussion and exchange.

Sit Talk Look Write - which will have a flexible and enduring presence in the Litmus space - presented a wall drawing, together with new furniture, reworked existing furniture and interior surfaces to encourage viewer awareness of space and function. While inhabited by Morris's work, the Litmus facility operates as both exhibition site and office. The viewer becomes participant and visa versa.

Closely aligned with the aims and scope of Litmus, Morris's practice has long been engaged with the conditions of site. His work has developed from the domain of painting into the expanded field of installation, architecture and public space. In previous projects, he produced wall drawings which aimed to reveal the architectural qualities of interior environments and heighten the viewer experience of space in time. More recently, this trajectory has concerned itself with ideas related to objects in three-dimensions.