Love[f]Art #06 | Izabela Pluta

Hosted by Amanda Love, the LoveArt podcast brings listeners into direct conversation with contemporary artists, extending the work of the independent art advisory, LoveArt, based in Sydney, New York and Athens.

The series draws from Love[f]Art, LoveArt’s ongoing program of intimate, in-conversation recordings with artists, originally conceived in 2020. Filmed in the most unlikely of settings—the guest powder room at the Love residence—the project strips things back to a one-to-one exchange, focusing on ideas, process and the conditions that shape contemporary practice.

This episode features Izabela Pluta’s An over air pursuit of likeness, consisting of two composite images affixed to a wall and a mirror, the work blends visual and textual sources, referencing a photograph Pluta’s father took from an aeroplane window in 1987 when her family emigrated from Poland to Australia.

Recorded in October 2021, at the time of the work’s installation, the conversation offers a direct insight into the thinking behind the piece, and the broader concerns that underpin her practice.

Izabela Pluta is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney.

Additional information, including the video version of this podcast, is available here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Hello and welcome to the sixth Back in ISO again iteration of Love Art's nano project space, Love Far, where we multitask this purpose-built isolation chamber, aka our nano guest bathroom, as a Bois de Valise to counter the increasing size and complexity of contemporary gallery and museum spaces that we seem to be increasingly unable to visit. Here on Garigoland, so I do pay my respects to the people of the Ayora Nation and all their elders, we explore the tiny and the one-to-one to showcase, and for those lucky enough to experience it, exhibit the strength of current artistic expression, which is by necessity innovative and of course ingenious. I'm Amanda Lull, and it's my great pleasure to introduce our latest site-specific installation, an over-air pursuit of likeness, by Newcastle-constrained multimedia artist Isabel Pluto. It's a latex-based inkjet mise en scene in which each Lakik participant gets to give their very own personalized performance, as you can imagine. Isabella was born in Warsaw and migrated here in 1987. And she uses photography to interpret and then reconceptualize exactly how it is that images as ubiquitous and I wanted to say democratic as they are now actually work in today's world. And she does this by negotiating materials and how they come together, as she sets about finding them, photographing them, fragmenting them, translating them, and then ultimately reconfiguring her bounty in its various material states, some of it photographic and some of it not. Fundamentally, what she's talking about is how we experience place in the face of ever-changing environmental and social conditions. And she does this by reconciling these images with all of their potential connections and all at the same time to ask just how it is that things from one place can and do fit into another. And of course, conceptually, this means conflating the effects of globalization with her own immigrant experience in order to think through and then, of course, express a more um fluid way for us to move through the world as well as being in it. Isabella? Thank you for zooming in from your studio. Hello. Hello, how are you? Good. How are you, Amanda? Very well, thank you. How's lockdown been treating you? Because I know you've got small children. It's um it's, you know, overall we're quite lucky. It's up and down. It's you know, is what it is for now. Well, your studio is looking in TikTok shape. Oh, is it? Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

It feels like um it feels like chaos, but um I'm glad it looks okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Anyway, it's great to see you. And then look, we'll get to the work here in a minute. But first, um let's take a look at some of your earlier work. Um, and I thought we'd begin with the Artspace Ideas platform, which I think was around 2018 and was actually where I first saw your work. And what I noticed from Ben is it seems to me that you've developed a very specific, very lively, but also a kind of rambling kind of photographic vocabulary, which to speak about, which allows you to speak about time chained and I suppose impermanent. So I wanted to ask, why photography?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, that's that's a um um big question, I guess. Yeah, I mean, look, I've I've been drawn to photographs for a long time, but interestingly, you know, I started out um, you know, practicing or as a student in art school with ceramics. Um, so I guess the beginning was always quite a sort of sculptural practice. Uh, and then at one point, quite early or halfway through, you know, my my sort of studies, I discovered photography having never really done it before, um, you know, with my hands or in the dark room. So it was kind of um I guess surprising in terms of what I could do with it or how I could treat it. And I think um I think the way that I work now maybe echoes that. Or I think sometimes um, you know, the photographic practice is kind of sculptural, even though I work with sort of two-dimensional forms predominantly. Um, I guess, you know, my my father was a keen photographer. He always sort of talks about this when when, you know, when we were growing up, um, he sort of worked for the university newspaper in Warsaw and he was a student. So um I think it's kind of always been around. And I sort of, you know, I sort of draw on those photographs or the idea of those photographs, um, if he's all family photographs, um not um not regular, but often. Um, and they come into the work in different ways, maybe not directly, but you know, sort of indirectly or sort of tangents of of that.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Um and I also think of his photograph, which triggered the work we have here, which we'll talk about later. But absolutely. Yeah, let's see.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. And I think, you know, photography is something as I've come to kind of understand it or keep kind of trying to understand it, you know, it's so complicated, it's so loaded. You know, but it's makes it complicated and very loaded. Yeah, yeah. But it's also something that um, you know, holds um, you know, photographs is something that we personally hold dearly for for different reasons. And I think for me it does come back to that, that that sort of photographs in in in various ways that I use them or maybe allude to, you know, are about that connection to something or to somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So yeah. Well, um, you know, it was from that Arts Base show that that we commissioned you to do a very specific tiny corporate project for the lobby of 300 George Street in Brisbane, which is just across from Craigoma and next to the W Hotel there, where we curated a major expression of Australian artists. And it was a very quick turnaround, which you had to do remotely, I think then, as I remember. And it brings to mind the word fluid, which uh seems to be a kind of key concept for you. I mean, how do you see the idea of fluidity uh playing out in your work?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

I feel um I feel I sort of have this way of um um wanting to make work of and from a certain place, but also resisting that in a certain way. Um I don't know if that I'm sort of expressing that well, but um yeah, I sort of it's it's a bit of a tussle, I think, in terms of how um a certain sort of side or sort of location is um is important to to sort of to ground the work in a way, but also to to sort of dislocate it geographically, to make it sort of universal and kind of questioning those things around um, you know, connection to places. And this particular work that um you know we did um um for this project was was looking at um the jacaranda as a sort of um as a sort of um specimen of of sort of significance to parts of the Brisbane River and and sort of working with it. Um, but I actually work with it in the dark room. I work with sort of um images of it and then sort of transposing them onto other, um, you know, kind of repeating it um as a form and kind of almost making an x-ray out of it, um kind of interrogating, I guess, it it as a sort of specimen over and over again, and then kind of ending up with this image that used a further kind of um form of collage and um kind of um puncturing the image, I guess, with these concentric circles, which were using the Fibonacci sort of logic as a way to um to um to flick to kind of to take the image from its original kind of source and and and that of course gives it a um a universe, so you know you're starting from a specific point of view, and then you're adding in a kind of way to give the work universal uh resonance.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah, which is what I I the Fibonacci does there, because it adheres adheres that work to a whole other, well, science and also uh world history, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

It does, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was um it was a beautiful work.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah, thank you. I have to say a huge commission from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. And this was to get uh to create um a significant new work, which you called Apparent Distance, for the entrance gallery wall of the art gallery, and it was to be and it was part of their signature contemporary show, The National. Now, that was a momentous work, which I felt was literally saturated with ideas about lands, materials, and and of course boundaries. Would you describe it as a mixture of a kind of topographical and conceptual mapping? Can you talk to this work?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, I I guess, yeah, it was um it was quite a huge sort of undertaking and it actually all started um uh uh a while was sort of halfway through, I think, when I was finishing my PhD or sort of trying to finish my PhD, and I was, you know, desperately sort of straying away as you do from from kind of from doing what I was supposed to be doing. Um, and it kind of came about because I I sort of um learned about a particular land formation, um, a kind of anomaly on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea, and it um was allegedly kind of sunken um uh and sort of disputed among scientists and archaeologists as to whether it was a man-made artifact or a naturally sort of formed um rock. So I think I was just very curious about what this sort of represented or what it could mean for me, given I had been looking at um sort of um sort of categorphic systems and about orientation or sort of disorientation more broadly in terms of um, you know, me as sort of someone who has has sort of um you know, sort of relocated as a migrant to Australia. And I kind of have always sort of um grappled or sort of thought about that, you know, that kind of idea of what it means to be um fluid, Les you said, or kind of um, you know, between places. So I kind of had to sort of visit, I guess, and see this this site. And and and leading up to that, there was a lot of sort of research and correspondence with the scientist um in the States, but also with um uh Mr. Kimekura, who was the the the um uh scientist in Japan who had worked and sort of researched this site for 30 years of his um career. So it was really quite um a big undertaking. Um and then when I got back from that research trip and from diving the the formation um in 2018, um the curator from the art gallery, um, Isabel Parker Phillips sort of approached me to sort of chat about what I'd been doing with with that research and and the initial sort of work and and this kind of um evolved from that. So yeah, I mean it was very much um um trying to sort of think about the material that I'd sort of gathered and sort of um filmed, and that was from diving and sort of filming underwater, and it was photographing um things that were on land, which is this this sort of billowing um it was actually a building that was covered in tarpole and um and because of this kind of ghastly sort of winds um on the island of Yonaguni, um, which make the diving actually really precarious and only possible at particular times of the year. So it's only like between I think January and um March that you can actually go to Yonaguni and on that southern um part of the island where the Yonaguni Formation lies, um, you can dive because of the currents and the winds, etc. So when I wasn't diving, um I was sort of driving and walking this this sort of very special um tiny um island, um which is sort of 11 kilometers in circumference in in um the southern west coast of Japan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Um I didn't realise you were a diver. I'm I'm an ex-a-diver. I haven't dived for a few years. Oh, really? I used to be very scuba dived all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Oh, we haven't talked about that.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah. But so when I look at this work though, um, and when I I remember seeing the work, and and I mean it's an incredible, it was incredible work in reality. I I felt overwhelmingly that the work was of the moment. And what I and what I mean by that is I wonder when you were, because you physically had to put that work together, and there are a lot of components in it, and talking again about fluidity, I I suppose. Um is that the way exactly that you would conceive the work, or did that work really develop as you were creating it on the wall at the time?

SPEAKER_01 14:01

It was, yeah, it was it was kind of both, Manda. It was like I had um like a long period of lead up. I think I had almost a year, or if not nine months, to kind of work on this commission. And so I, and as you know, like I work with models. So I from the beginning sort of started working with the imagery and sort of collaging this imagery in various ways. And um, and I had a model set up at some kind of crazy ratio. So it was kind of just 2.4 because that was a good bit of um phone call that I could get. And I sort of built the model um of the walls, and and I sort of started working with the imagery over the top um of it and and sort of printing and working with the textile and and sort of there was very various itations um of the work. But um, at one point when it got sort of a few months out of the show, you know, we discussed that. I mean, really, I knew that I had to rehearse this work because the work wasn't like a wallpaper, it wasn't fixed and had so many moving parts. And and also to kind of to see the work, it was you had to sort of experience your body in relation to the scale of it and to those components which worked at distance and at kind of closer proximity. So I had a sort of um the art gallery um sort of organized for me to sort of do a test firstly at their storage facility, but then at um the Sydney College of the Arts Galleries before they moved out of that um then year. So I was able to have a week, I think, um in the the former SCA galleries in Roselle to essentially once it was all printed, it had all been manufactured by January that year. And I um with my assistant then um did a sort of testing. So I kind of put it up and put it back down. And each time, of course, you put it up, it's different to the next time. So, and that's kind of exactly what happened at the art gallery. So I kind of had to learn about how the medium behaved that or kind of misbehaved as well. So each time, which is sort of the thing that I learned about the work that I kind of loved as well as I found really frustrating and and challenging, um, that I couldn't control it. And I think that really went back to the whole logic and and reason of why I kind of made it and it kind of signaled back to the dive and this sense of um being really um uh this immense sense of discomfort and anxiety around being underwater and and feeling, you know, and you would understand that diving, you know, and and having that um uh very physical um sort of experience of a body of water as it is upon you as a kind of very, you know, significant weight and and um yeah, so so it kind of would see that as calming though, um there is an element of that. Yeah, if you don't. Absolutely. The lower you go and the low, you know, the slower you breathe. Absolutely. I mean, so it has that dual effect, that kind of meditative stage. Um, and I actually felt that when um kind of partially meditative, part partially sort of overwhelming. Um, when I had to dive, um, we had to do a blue dive before we went to do the dive along the monument. Um, so we sort of just dropped off the boat a couple of kilometers offshore from um the coast and just descended to about 30 meters just to test our buoyancy. Um and I just sort of, you know, remember being in that blue space, which is I think a lot of the logic for resolving this work. That's kind of how it came about of being in this blue space and not having any sense of orientation of bottom or top, you know, um, and actually just feeling really sort of like real discomfort, but at the same time, this state of hearing, you know, because you you hear yourself breathe, right? It's this beautiful breathing that you hear, you hear your own breath only. Um, so I kind of really uh yeah, that's kind of shaped, I think, the work as well.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Um, so really it was like uh because uh in terms of that performative aspect of creating it, then it was almost like a performance that you had to learn to do over and over again to in the testing, and then to sort of get it absolutely right at the last the last iteration of it, which was obviously the installation of the final work. But it must you practice it and it must have become a bit like a dance or you know, doing the work big it sort of pol has a polis pollock-esque aspect to my mind, which gives off that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah, I guess it was um, yeah, it was you you could rehearse how it um how I wanted it to kind of behave and how I wanted to kind of orchestrate the fall, because the fall is kind of implied, but it is also orchestrated by the way the the kind of the folds and the pleats of the fabric are kind of pinned into position, but then do their own thing as they sort of fall.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

So the physicality about it, of course, because that material is is quite physical and you know there's swathers of it. Um yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And then of course it it does um, yeah, it's sort of I mean, a lot of the imagery in it, including that shaft of light, which is actually from a photocopier, the one on the left, um, that sort of looks like a light, well, potentially that might come from you know, like a light trough from the top of the ocean going down, is actually from a photocopier. So some of the imagery I made by using um some of the photographic material that I sourced and laying another photo photocopier and then having it sort of at a particular distance from the glass so that uh, you know, when the machine sort of copied the light would kind of recede into into blackness. I was sort of really trying to come up with these ways of sort of talking about how um, you know, nothing is really what it seems and nothing is really what it seems, um, and how you see it underwater, because all of those um things like luminosity and colour and and um and distance are different based on the conditions under there due to, you know, currents and and um weather and things like that. So everything is constantly um, you know, at odds and at like kind of in flux. And then this work, I think I really wanted to to um uh to evoke sort of that that precarity of of of being able to see something fixed and and and failing to do so, hence this kind of ever-shifting kind of kind of um materiality. And I think, you know, obviously if I installed this work again, it would appear different. So so there were these sort of unique moments and the work can't appear exactly the same ever again.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

And there's no um, even though there's a certain formlessness about its final appearance, uh it's no sense of the abject there, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah, I think I think um, you know, I sort of I wanted to, yeah, I think there's there's a lot of elements in in the work. Like there's there's the there's so there's the sort of the site, the site itself um in the imagery on the right, and there's a lot of um components which are either you know cinefoil, which is on the left there, and it's um, you know, a sort of the the the foil that is used in cinematography or cinema to to photographic studios to um you know shield or to block light, to control light essentially. Um and then all of the photographic uh these these components that are unaluminium that actually reflect light as you walk past it, kind of do a bit of a shimmer or something that you might, you know, you see a fleck of light underwater. So I sort of wanted to um, I guess to kind of complicate the the viewing, the plane of viewing or what you're actually seeing.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

What um so I wanted to actually talk about that because I mean I don't know where the Richter is an influence in terms of you know the the the original, the photograph, the replaying of the photograph into the original, that you know, the cutting, the collaging, the putting the elements in, which is very much part of your practice. Um but how do you know when to stop?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yes, that's a uh I I guess um I I don't like things have to feel right, and there are there are infinite possibilities. And I think um I'm really thinking about that at the moment as I'm sort of working on on something else for later in the year, but you know, secret exhibition you can't work actually finish.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Sorry. The secret exhibition we can't talk about yet hasn't been announced. Yeah, apparently, yes, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Um, yeah, I feel um I I I I I I don't know how to answer that really, but I think this iterative um way of putting things in, taking things out. I mean, the fact that I there are endless possibilities of this work to exist, um I find really liberating, but I also find really overwhelming. I've sort of um just always tussling with um this sense of um finishing and completing something. So there's a sort of a visual logic, there's a there's a logic of my intention, I guess, of how I want a viewer to sort of experience it. Um and then it's just pure intuition, you know, of of aesthetics and and kind of composition and um and I guess interplay between um how one image kind of has a sort of syntax with with sort of another. But yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think um that's always a conundrum of when when it's actually when is it actually finished.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

So um Dusko just sort of circling back to your your point you made then about your intention about how you want the viewer to experience the work? I mean, this work was showed in the entrance hall of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in a very large exhibition and very prestigious exhibition, and of course, there were works on the other side of the wall, other people's works on the other side, and I think there were sculptures sort of on a few sculptures up one end. How did you feel or find you know the intentionality of your idea of how the word would be experienced? How did that fit into it being in in a group exhibition like that?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I mean, I you know, we worked, uh we all I mean we all worked really closely with Isabel, and I guess within that relationship, that kind of curator artist relationship, you know, I kind of have um a lot of trust in her and other people that are working with a great curator. Yeah, I mean, she's you know, fantastic. So a lot of it was that, and it was actually mutual. I mean, I think part of it was me um still often sort of thinking, she's really trusting me with this work, with this space. So um yeah, um the work, this this image was actually taken um after the national had finished and the work stayed up for a couple of weeks longer just because of changeover kind of logistics, which was really lucky. I mean, not lucky, but just lovely to see it in its own um uh sort of um yeah, by its by itself just. Um I think it had some um like it it spoke to like the works within that space, which is Andrew Hazelwinkel's work that was um in the Four Court Dead sculptural work and Tom Polo's work, which was across on the high walls near the old courts.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Um they also very Tom Polo's work is a very dominant work as well. Yes, absolutely, yeah. But we didn't really know No one was taking any prisoners in that exhibition.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

No. Um, we didn't really know that we were both actually working with this form of, you know, this masquerade, this kind of curtain in a sense. I mean, I wouldn't call my work a curtain necessarily, but it does work with the drapery. Um, you know, and Andrew was sort of working with these, these sort of um, you know, sort of reconfigured sort of classical sculptures. So there was a lot of dialogue between the work. Um and I think uh, you know, this space is, you know, really fantastic because it is very, you know, well positioned, but it is also a thoroughfare between the entryway and then the lower floors. So I always sort of knew I had to contend with that as well as the ceiling, um, but contend with the transient sort of um visitor. So hence um kind of making the work, I mean, two-dimensional, but also sculptural. So really trying to kind of ask the viewer to come closer, to kind of sort of speculate and and and to be curious around, you know, is that a fold that I'm seeing or is that a photograph of the fold? Is that actually falling? Is it pinned up? These sort of questions of um the artifice that it was sort of suggesting um was was really important. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Well, it was an absolute um mammoth effort. And as as far from the dizzy heights of the national as I I know it was, that same year you all also realized another specific tiny commission for us, alongside um Daniel Boyd for Sereno, which is the restaurant, which is the restaurant at the new Mulanes Hotel in the Vaucham Hills, and it was called Glass, and we loved it and everybody loved it. But I I wanted to just use this as a jumping off point for you to talk a bit about this process of cyanotype and contact negative that you work with, you know, especially in relation to your creative processes. I know it's something you've got you've taken on, and it's also something very much relevant to the world in which I am sitting.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, I mean, this was um, I mean, the photograph that I took when I was in Paris, it seems like a lifetime ago, but around 20 2008, I think I had the So we shouldn't just explain here that the whole work is not just the neon, the whole work is the whole image. Yes, it was it is, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so it's a wallpaper um a fixed image um on a wall that has the the sort of the neon component um um of the establishment that you know where it's sort of sitting at the moment. Um yeah, I mean the image, the photograph itself, um, which is um an image from inside the Paris Opera actually, um, was taken when I was in Paris Opera Cite for a couple of months through um the then COFA studio there. And I mean I I do work, you know, I work with these um uh, you know, these found objects, this sort of ephemera that comes into my hands, into my studio, but I also do photograph out there in the world. And um when I do that, it sort of changes. I mean, COVID-dependent, also having sort of the the um, you know, traveling less um obviously at the moment, but also over the last few years I've I've I've traveled a little bit less. Um, you know, this was a really interesting um, I think, um, situation where this this sort of glass um or this mirror inside this very you know uh elaborate um particular setting um in France um was cracked and you know this this crack was just you know bodgied up. It was just taped with like white gaffer tape. Um and I think it's just a very uh I mean it's it's a very pragmatic sort of solution. But I think this image has really stuck with me um for many ways. And I don't know if there are ways that I can sort of verbalize or kind of talk about, but I think it's a real um, it's it's something that I've I've I've made um over the years and I always return to.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

It seems I mean it is a loaded image. I mean it's a huge psychological register around that image, in my opinion. Um if you ask me. Anyway, yeah, it's uh I I thought it was a a brilliant, um, a brilliant work. Um now um just before we come on to discuss an over-air pursuit of likeness, I I know that you've realized another large project, and again remotely because of COVID. And I think it was called um Lines of Sight, I think. Lines of Sight? That was one of the National World Creativity and Valletta in Malta. Yeah. Can can you tell us about this thing? Is unfortunately we haven't got to see it. Yes, no. Well, you will see some of it soon, actually. Um oh, in the secret exhibition that we can't talk about. Oh no, this is another one. This is another one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

The major institution. Well, this one, this some of this work um or the the photographic component is um uh will be presented at UNSW Galleries in my exhibition that is to open um hopefully soon. We still don't have confirmation, but hopefully later um um this year, this month, if if possible. So this is this is the work that's coming to Sydney. Um, but this was an exhibition um that was titled Variable Depth Shallow Water, and it was something that I'd worked on um for a couple of years that was sort of around the time I was working on the national. Um, you know, as you do sort of research, you um, you know, things kind of cross over and I sort of find other um related things that seem related, but in fact they're kind of not. So so I um I came across a particular um a sea arch or a sea arch that had fallen um into the the Mediterranean there off um off the coast of Gozo on the smaller island of of Malta. And I um I had some, you know, I had an opportunity to sort of go there and and sort of work with that site. Um and I think it it it was sort of interesting to me in a very sort of tangential way, in a way that I guess I, you know, knew I needed to sort of explore in some way, but not necessarily kind of understanding exactly um why. It was sort of, you know, I'd been looking at Yonaguni, which was um, you know, uh a sort of a rock formation that had, you know, slowly sunk um, you know, to be under sea level over 10,000 years when, you know, previous to that, you know, before the last ice age, it was above water. Whereas this rock, the the Azuri window or duera, um uh in Malta had, you know, just disappeared in an instant during a storm in April in 2017. So there were these sort of schisms of sort of um trying to understand time, you know, kind of the workings of that through through um through these two sort of locations. And I traveled to to Malta for a couple of weeks um in 2019 um to sort of film the work. And it um it was a three-channel video, which is here on these sort of screens that were sort of leaning um at these sort of uh slight sort of angles to parallel, you know, they weren't sort of completely at the right angle to the floor, um, of these three uh perspectives of perspectives that were um sort of descending and sort of approaching this sort of debris of rock, um, and uh perspective that was sort of um panning or sort of moving up and down the cliff face, which is the sort of center one there, um, which was the cliff that the the way that actually sort of the the rock fell away from. Um and then me sort of filming the the third channel was me sort of filming that the rock here it is from from the air. Um, and this was after I died, the day after I dived um the site um with the local divers, which which was um quite um an experience in its own right, um kind of a long, um, yeah, sort of yeah, kind of quite different to to how things can I just ask, are you a happy diver or are you a nervous diver? I'm nervous. I'm very nervous, Sonanda. Yeah. I'm I'm probably probably retired to be honest. I'm so done.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

I did just always take a valiant before I'd wish you'd die.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Maybe that would help me. I mean, you know, I I did it recreationally for a couple of years when I met my partner and we sort of did it. And then I really kind of stopped. After I had children, I sort of stopped. And then when I came across these two things, somehow it all of a sudden I had to do this. I had to dive to be able to see them. So it was really a means to an end to make artwork, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

So there's an element of the romantic then in it, because you had to conquer as a quest, you've had to conquer to get the image that you wanted that you had in your head.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

I did, yeah. Yeah, and I had, you know, I had the image in my head, and it's one of those things, this sort of this, this, this motion that's kind of um imbued with sort of failure, for a reason I'll explain in a second, but also because you also you kind of you always imagine such spaces, and they are always, they always transpire to be something other than what you imagine. So there's this sort of inherent, you know, um, failure in that process. But in this particular work, there was an actual, you know, really kind of massive misadventure where I crashed my drone when I was filming um that next morning. So I um got up really early and I um kind of had located where the the debris was. Um and I sort of filmed it with my drone. And you know, I I'm not really I can I can do it, I've been taught, but I'm not, you know, um a professional by any means. Um and I I filmed the site from the air, and on the third battery, I kind of got a little bit excited because I saw that um as I was navigating around it. And of course, it you know, kind of connects to your phone, and I crashed the drone into the cliff, and it was a little moment of just disbelief of thinking of you know, I'd I'd traveled all that way. So that was quite devastating. Um, but of course, you know, as things, you know, transpire and you know, it it um it kind of brought about a way of resolving the work um in a different way. Um so there was like actual failure. Um, but I um so I kind of left Malta with with with some some sort of material and conversations that that I had with um uh some people that I've met there around the site and around the work and and other people. Um but also I came back to Sydney and three weeks after I returned, I had a message from um one of the divers that said, Issa, we've been trying to contact you. We've got the drone. So um, yeah, it was just it was one of the, I was sitting in the studio in Darlinghouse. I remember distinctly just getting this message from Yacek, he was Polish actually, and um telling me that I've got the drone, but they can't get anything off the sim, the, the, the SD card because it was one of those little micro ones. So I just said send it, send it to me quickly. Um, so I should should just follow up and just say that when the drone hit that cliff and just fell into the sea there, I um knew the exact GPS uh location because I um it was tracked on the phone. So I could call up the diving company that I was diving with, Oliver, and just say, Oliver, you we need to go down there again, like now, today. And he just said, There's a storm coming, is well, that's not going to be possible, and we can't get there for another, you know, five to six days. And by then it'll be the, you know, if you're lucky, it's wetched in between the rocks. So and it was so it was anything.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

So so there is an element of sublime, the sublime then in these works. I suppose I know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems to be. I mean, yeah, you are a Casper David Friedrich. There is. No, I can't, yeah, absolutely. I mean, um, I'm expressing the inexpressible in a way.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

I am, you know, sometimes I can't find, you know, words for it really. Like I sort of, I mean, I guess that's why um, you know, I like to complicate things. And that's a kind of intuitive um sort of intention with, I mean, at the beginning you sort of talked about this sort of language or these sort of um um this sort of vocabulary, I think you said, about images coming together in a certain way. So um, I mean, I think this work, perhaps in the way that um the national sort of work, the apparent distance came together, you know, this also can be reimagined in an infinite number of ways. There isn't a sort of um uh a particular logic. It's it's really about this work, which is an aluminium structure that holds, as I like to think about it, these photographic objects that either lean or fold over, kind of pivot the structure. Um, but your body has to, as a viewer, um, sort of maneuver around it. You kind of have to find your way around it to kind of find the images and find the kind of angles and and um orientate, kind of constantly sort of orientate yourself around these um these fragments, which is just Google photographic.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

So, with the that idea of complication, and I hope this is not an impertinent question. Do you ever feel that you sometimes try and complicate your way out of something if you come near to what you're saying that feel you can't say it, and then so you can the complications a way of letting you off the hook, or is it putting you back on the hook?

SPEAKER_01 39:40

I think it's um I think it's sort of sort of thinking like I I feel like um I don't always have this, well, I mean I don't have um, I think there isn't a singular solution. I think that I'm I'm just I'm always sort of um shuffling photographs. I think that's kind of how I describe my practice to a friend, artist friend a while ago. But um, I mean I make photographs, you know, but part of what I do is this sort of shuffling. It's sort of um literally on the desk in the studio, you know, it's kind of thinking about how things sort of come together. And I think sometimes I do um overthink something, overcomplicated as you kind of sort of um I didn't say overcomplicate.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

I complicate your way out of or into something.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, yeah. Um, hmm, I don't know. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Yeah, it's an interesting, yeah. But then if if it is, I'm I'm usually comfortable with the complication I've created.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I um yeah, perhaps it is. I mean, I think I I think part of it is that this um I I kind of seem to avoid and I've sort of noticed that, particularly in the last couple of years, I'm sort of really sort of struggling to work in a singular kind of language, if there is a singular language of photography, or if there's a single, you don't really think about genres anymore, but you know, like um that I sort of uh just uh just move between fluid, it gets back to that idea of fluidity.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Yeah, perhaps from the sublime uh to the miraculous. Let's move on to the work here, uh in which I'm sitting, an over air pursuit of likeness. Um now, I feel like this pulls together a lot of the things we've been talking about because it's inspired by a photograph that your father took in 1987 while looking out of the plane window on your migratory flight from Germany to Australia.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

So I mean that that must have so you just got you we've touched on what that triggered for you, certainly in relation to your work, but in relation to this commission Yeah, I think um, you know, when um I think a few things lined up when I, you know, when we sort of spoke about this a few weeks ago, and um as it sort of does, I think when particular sources or images just sort of gel um in my mind, you know, and then kind of appear in the studio. I I sort of um I I was in Melbourne um very briefly in between lockdowns, just last um June, July. I my my my parents live in Melbourne. So um usually when I'm there I do spend some time somehow flipping through albums. There's really only one album of me that that sort of they hold, which is one of those classic sort of 1990s, large, thick sort of albums that we opened. But this time, somehow I kind of came across this image and um which was just in sequence to the photographs of us sort of leaving and arriving here in Australia. Um and somehow at that time it just really touched, you know, there was something about seeing this image of the clouds, which is very common, you know, it's a very ubiquitous kind of image. We've all seen them, we've all taken them, you know. I sort of still very much obsessed about taking them out of um plain windows um when I can. I think at this moment it just felt um quite important. Um, and and I think the other thing about the way that I make work, sometimes, I mean, I I um I can't quite articulate why that that significance is there for now. And I think making the work and then thinking through it and then continuing to sort of expand this work will be will be that, which will be um great. Um, but uh I had the photograph and then I kind of had it at home. I actually have it here in an envelope and lantern. Um protect it from the light. Um I I had a I have a photograph. Um sorry, I have a I have a book that I picked up. So we um We sort of moved to Newcastle just late last year, and I was sort of remember at the beginning sort of going to a couple of secondhand bookshops and I picked up a particular um pictorial study of clouds and I've sort of had this sitting in the studio as I as I've worked um you know sort of previously with pictorial dictionaries, um as I think you mentioned and um and atlases in in very recent work and still at the moment. So I had this sort of guide to clouds, and I somehow um, you know, in thinking about this project, it just made absolute sense to kind of um, well, it wasn't a kind of sense, it was actually sort of being quite curious about what this cloud was and what the formation kind of meant in terms of the weather on that particular day. Because I guess when you, you know, I don't really have um, you know, many or any memories of of of that period in my life. So um I'm I'm sort of there's a sort of, yeah, I'm curious around what such photograph can tell me. So um I kind of went about um unhinging this book of uh, you know, a resource or a reference guide to clouds and and using it as as sort of the basis as the formation for this work.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

And did you get to replicate the atmospheric conditions? And if so, what what did that teach you about your own construction of reality, memory, and you know, associations with given that time has passed since this incident happened?

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah, I think, you know, it was um, it was, it was uh, you know, I I mean I love, you know, it's kind of scientific, but it's a sort of scientific book that's written in very sort of normal, sort of regular kind of colloquial sort of language, because it's for, you know, um just uh it's not for the scientific audience. So I quite enjoyed sort of reading and sort of, you know, learning about clouds, which I've never really sort of thought about, um, and sort of learning about, you know, the um, you know, how they're written about and how, you know, looking at them from, you know, from ground up is actually quite different to when you see them from a plane, they kind of read kind of differently. So a lot of the stuff that I had come to sort of understand through sort of reading, but also looking at the various sort of examples of these clouds was that um, you know, there isn't really a singular way of um articulating or kind of analyzing a kind of cloud formation. Um so it became this process of trying to kind of match, trying to kind of um uh coordinate and sort of um, I guess reimagine. Like um, you know, it was a kind of very much a process of looking and trying to find something, this kind of pursuit of like really wanting to kind of know, to sort of seek this knowledge out in order to help me just sort of um understand, I guess, something about um that particular day. Um and something that is completely um uh ephemeral in in a sense. So uh I I I sort of decided at one point through shuffling these photographs that that kind of um the way that the book was sort of pulled out of its um, this is actually the book here, by the way. Um by the way I was ripping the pages out of the book in order to use them for the contact um negative to kind of make the cyanotypes, I I sort of ended up tearing the actual prints once they were made. Um, so they became these sort of um ruptures or things that kind of just disconnected the two states of the images. And sometimes they were um in these two works the the same cloud represented across two different pages or sort of interpretations or analysis of the cloud um together, but it kind of unhinged it like temporally, I guess for me. That's kind of what I was wanting to think of.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

And this is the first time that I've seen text um so prevalent in your works. Um so that that's something obviously that we might see more of. I yes, I've I've um I mean this text is very led well, it's legible, but it's also illegible because it broken. I've tried to read it a number of times. I think yeah. Now, I finally before we um close, I mean, as your work so it really does expand the functionality of photography. Um I I'd just be interested to know what you think the role of the image and by extension, photography is in today's digital world where photography and taking photographs and images are just so ubiquitous.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

I think um, yeah, I mean it's become um just you know, it's um it's it's something that everybody relates to now. It's something that is sort of ubiquitous, as you say, but also um it's so commonplace to kind of, you know, it's sort of the it's um uh like a instinct, instinct to take a photograph of something for whatever purpose, for the purpose of, you know, Instagram, for the purpose of sort of photographing, um, just to collect images, to collect experiences. So I mean, I think it's um, I don't, I wouldn't, you know, I don't think it's sort of meaningless or kind of become meaningless in any in any way, but I think that um I guess I'm interested in sort of using um photography still because it has that um connection. I think um I think it sort of has that connection to you know very sort of personal private experiences um and things that perhaps are quite close, but also can be um uh can be sort of communicated through an image, not through words, with you know, others. And and and and it's sort of a language um that is um I mean it's it's it's its own kind of vocabulary. Um and it's I mean, it can it can sort of be um, yeah, I mean, extremely sort of complicated and extremely um impactful.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Like it also and it seems like to me it allows you to actually wrap up like the number of tenants that the tenants that I have taken from knowing your work and looking at your work and and understanding trying to, you know, understanding your work is that it seems like travel, um where you've come come from and where you are. So travel, location, and science are are sort of very much um components of your work. Very sort of you wrap up and rewrap up and unpack and then pack up again in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also, you know, photographs kind of um, you know, is seemingly there to hold this knowledge of something, of an event or of a certain sort of um something that we seek to kind of understand. But of course, that very premise is is flawed, you know, that the photograph doesn't essentially do that. Um, just in the same way of me kind of encountering and sort of using such a pictorial dictionary to to kind of seemingly, you know, try and sort of collect or understand something is also, you know, just as much um uh kind of forensic. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. But also, you know, it's impossible. It's kind of the impossibility of sort of knowing and knowing everything. Um and I mean, you know, I've also been working with these atlases, which are um uh the oceanic atlases, which, you know, I I find so much um, I get so overwhelmed, you know, by the information that is in them. There's this sort of this again, this sort of I guess implicit sort of failure, like, but but a desire to kind of want to, to kind of want to um understand. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Isabella, um thank you so much for making the work and for taking the time to talk it through with us. As as always, working with you has been an absolute pleasure. And I do look forward to the upcoming exhibition at you said it at the University of New South Wales when there are galleries when they announce their date. Um, and I I'm sure there are lots of questions, but sadly we don't have time for questions right now. Um, but people know they can contact your gallery for for your work, Sally Dan Caffert. And so I'd just like to say goodnight to you and good night, everyone. We'll be welcoming anyone to see the work by appointment. And thanks, of course, very much to my colleague Isabella Chow for her part in making all this happen. And I hope everybody stays safe at home or socially distanced until we can all meet again, hopefully, in person. So see you all soon. Bye bye. Thanks, Amanda.