Early Works

On 15th March 2021, during a period of eased restrictions, I recorded the sound of the passionate crowd at the Women’s March 4 Justice on the lawns of Parliament House. In I Speak to You Today Out of Necessity, I aimed to memorialise that forceful collection of voices in a series of laser etchings on paper. Analysing Brittany Higgins’ speech in Adobe Audition, I observed how clear the visual difference between the amplified voice of one survivor and the crowd’s response was. I captured the spectrogram of this speech and laser etched it across eleven sheets of 200gsm paper, increasing the power so that the loudest responses from the crowd almost burnt through the paper. I imagined the paper as the walls of Parliament House and the volume of the voices as the best hope of reaching the other side. I displayed the etchings behind clear acrylic panels etched with the corresponding part of Higgins’ speech. When light was shone onto the panel directly the shadow of the words cast onto the page.

Care Construction I

Care Construction I, acrylic paints, plywood, lavender oil, lavender, screws. 29.5 x 45 x 7.5 cm, 2021. Photo: Rory Gillen 2021.

My grandmother’s loss of voice signalled that the disease had reached her lungs and that she would soon be unable to breathe. My family tried to find ways for me to perform acts of care from afar. They tasked me with drawing communication charts so my grandmother could convey her basic needs to family and carers by moving her eyes. In Care Constructions I, I revisited that task and reconsidered the charts as both tools to enact care and as a space lovingly constructed for me to perform care in. The work is a box filled with fragrant lavender stems. On the front of the box the charts have been laser etched through layers of acrylic paint, each chart on top of the last. Three areas, where particularly painful or personal detail were, have been blocked out in white. On reflection, these communication charts and the resulting work was my first encounter connecting my arts practice and mourning as it recognised how I might use making to begin the work of loss.