Made with love
Posted: November 29, 2011 Filed under: media art, Uncategorized | Tags: australia, felt artspace, i know my chickens, kate moskowa, sary zaninari, sasha grbich, south australia, video art Leave a comment »
Earlier this year I had the privilege of making a work about a dear friend. It was for a show called ‘I Know my Chickens’ – held at FELT artspace and curated by Kate Moskwa.
The premise for the show was four close friends making work about each other and it ended up a strange, heartwarming concoction of portraits, memories and jokes. I made a video about my friend Sary: artist, cook and all round lovely man.
My work was a video that attempted to recreate my favorite moment with him. The memory in question involved driving through country Victoria on a glorious road-trip. We were chattering way, sharing food and I was taking photos of Sary from the passenger seat. I loved those photos – for the relationship the revealed between photographer and subject – the glances passed between driver and passenger and the chance to observe someone intimately that driving together allows.
Many thanks to the friends that helped recreate this moment on film: Lisa, Gianna, Holly, Amy, Nicholas, Catherine, Rachel and Claire.
Kate Moskwa wrote about the show:
“A favorite game of ours is to pick a TV show or movie, preferably with four leading characters, and assign them to each other based on looks, personality traits, and events. Sometimes it doesn’t work out perfectly and one or two people are poor matches. The most successful matching to date in my opinion, was Winnie the Pooh and friends. Pooh-Bear, Piglet, Tigger and Eey-ore. Well that’s one way of seeing us. At its simplest, this is an exhibition of portraiture. Four friends have represented what they think they know of each other. They have created the characters they see. Like a film or novel, these characters have evolved and present themselves to you, our audience. However, these characters were developed not through a single authorial vision, but envisioned by the other players. At its warmest, this exhibition is homage. The persona comprised from memories, photographs and stories tell as much about the author as they do the character. In dedicating an exhibition to one’s friends there’s an element of humble self portraiture.”
