INSPIRATION

MY CONTEXT

I was born in Australia, which is perhaps our oldest ancestor. The oldest continent on Earth. It is such a unique corner of the world- the nature is rough and resilient having survived the test of time. The earliest direct evidence of life on Earth was actually uncovered in Australia, in the form of blue-green algae micro-fossils. This extremely ancient life which Australia holds, fuels my inspiration and artistic practise. Coming from Australia where my home is bound by ocean, water has forever been such a curious element to me. Ocean is interconnection, an ancient ecosystem of memory and magic, unpredictable, and the essential molecule for life. Water is integral to life on Earth as we know it.

Australia


WOMEN AND WATER - AN UNEXPLORED CONNECTION

To me, the sea resembles a woman- gracious, wild, unpredictable, and the essential molecule for life. Water is integral to life on Earth as we know it- just the way women are. Water is the womb. The womb is water. And life incubates in a woman’s womb. So perhaps the origin of our evolution is in the sea.aims to reconnect humans to the origins of our evolution in the sea. I hold an intuitive feeling about an unexplored connection between women and the sea which has existed for centuries. From seaweed collecting culture in the Victorian Era, to today where women are at the forefront of the kelp farming industry in all corners of the world. Through my project I want to raise awareness about the crucial role that women have, and will continue to play in revealing connections between living systems.

WomenNymphs WomenHarvest Inspo2


CONNECTING TWO SYSTEMS - WHERE THERE IS WATER THERE IS LIFE

  1. Women : amniotic fluid during pregnancy is almost all water. (FEMALE HAIR as textile to represent women)

  2. Earth : earliest evidence of conditions for life on Earth found in hydrothermal vents in ocean + earliest direct evidence of life on Earth found in Australia in the form of cyanobacteria microfossil. (ALGAE - use as textile to respresent sea)

Inspo2


STORY

A story about an unexplored connection between women and the sea. A story that raises awareness about the undervalued role that women play in revealing connections between living systems. Weaving a world where women are mermaids and mothers conveying wisdom through centuries of craftsmanship. Weaving a story about the untamed woman. Intuition is her guide. She lives in a world between worlds, where women are "micro mothers of the Earth", messengers of interconnectedness and interdependence. A story that fuses females, algae, water and sunlight - 4 essential elements for life on Earth as we know it.

MicroMothers

Women are Micro Mother's working for Mother Earth


DRAWING PARALLELS

Similarities between Algae and Female's

ALgaeWomenTable

Differences between Algae and Seaweed

AlgaeSeaweedTable

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

I conducted a Research Questionnaire to Female's which assisted my understnaing of their connection to the water. I believe there is a wilderness within all women that sends her to a world between worlds. I wanted to investigate the truth within this concept.

Q1 Q2 The research question's I curated and asked women from different demographics. You can view the responses on the hyperlink above.

I conducted a Research Questionnaire to Male's which assisted my understanding about the importance of women on Earth from a male perspecitve. In theis questionnaire, I enjoy looking at the word 'female' as a metaphor for 'ocean'.


WORKS THAT HAVE USED TEXTILE TO TRANSMIT A MESSAGE IN THE PAST

I will harness textile and art to transmit this message. This has been a common approach to activism for centuries as seen below. Textile plays a fundamental role in raising awareness and educating about connections between living systems. Particularly when draped over the human body- an unannounced attempt to reconnect the outside world with the inside world.

Inspo1 Inspo2


INTERWOVEN TAPESTRY TECHNIQUES - INSPIRATION

I visualise a large scale tapestry threaded tightly with algae yarn (warp strings) and woven with algae bioplastics and female human hair. I want the aesthetic to be raw, natural, and alive like a breathing biological creature. I hope to achieve this through allowing sun to play a role in bringing the piece to life. As it is hung form the gallery ceiling, sun will shine through the softly bio-dyed, transparet strips of alginate bioplastic. These kinds of techniques inspired me through their diversity, abstract approach to layering, and colour combinations.

Inspo2 Inspo2 Violaine Buet Inspo2 Inspo2 Yarnspirations


STRUCTURE

I took inspiration from the structure of these seaweed farms to build and fabricate Gaia. I want to showcase an interwoven matrix of human and nature. An entangled ecosystem brought into fruition through my own craftsmanship and seaweed farming techniques undertaken by women. I want the structure to allow me to work through it, not onto or around it. I want to weave the fabric of the Earth through it and I think the shape of the seaweed farming beds will allow me to achieve this. I like the idea of draping and wrapping in and around warp strings (seaweed lines).

InspoScaffold


REFLECTING ON OLD WORK

It is interesting looking back to Week 3 inspiration. I had already documented my curiosity's about female's and the ocean. I drew on idea's such as women as warriors protecting and fighting for their coral who were under threat by anthropogenic climate change. An invisible dot that I was unaware of joining with later in the course.

W3Img W3Imgs ConceptArt.org artist z993126. Walmore Correa - Ondina. Folgen des Schnürens - Druck auf den Brustkorb. W3Img2 Visual Inspiration - Credit: De Natuur Van Europa, Publishing the Spectrums. La Exploracion Del Espacio, Rafael Clemente.


HAIR

The virtues and powers of individuals are thought to be held in hair. Using hair as a material for my final project was both literal and metaphorical. I literally want to showcase the intelligence of hair as a material we should be harnessing in the textiles industry. And I metaphorically want to showcase the historical association of hair through myth and legend. Hair as magic, as memory, and freedom. I gained great inspiration about hair and heirachy from Bibliodyssey. Thse images were produced in the 18th century. I believe they are playing with the idea of hair and status. In the 1700's, the hair of a woman was considered a threat to male dominance. It is possible that men perceived hair as heirachy; high morale and confidence; three traits that threatened their power in the public sphere. In medievil times, witches had their hair shaven off because it was thought to have contained feminine magic spells; a threat to the social order.

bighair bighair

Essay's On Hair


SEA SILK

Chiara Vigo, also known as Lady of the Waters, is a Sardinian artist from whom I drew wild inspiration. She uses 'byssus' or sea silk- a rare delicacy that she harvests herself from the ocean in her town. She works with byssus as a textile to raise awareness about her relationship with the ocean. She says her work is an oath to water. Her delicate craftsmanship “weave’s soul” into the onlooker. She believes that it is not art that must bring economic gain. She does not want people to approach her who have the intent to learn to sell. She believes her work is something more. “Weaving the thread of the sea enriches people”, a primitive idea that relates to sacredness, storytelling, love, and respect.

ChiaraVigo

Essay's On Sea Silk


WOMEN AND SEAWEED FARMING

From seaweed collecting culture in the Victorian Era, to today where woman are at the forefront of the kelp farming industry, there exists a delicate connection to the sea which women have, and are continuing to foster.

17C 21stC

Essay's On Women and Seaweed Farming


THE NAME - GAIA

The name ‘Gaia’ is from Ancient Greek mythology- Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life- the primal Mother Earth goddess. I wanted to personify my artwork by giving it a female name. I think that by giving textiles human like qualities, such as a name, we can start interacting with them in a more personable way, considering their history, their structure, their properties and experiencing them emotionally. I wanted a name that was ancient- like the sea, primordial. Existing at, or before the beginning of time. Soft lettering but strong pronounciation.

GaiaIMG Anselm Feuerbach, 1875. Antikensammlung Berlin Museum Collection, 400-410 B.C. Unknown Artist. FamTree Hesiod's Theogony


ECOFEMINISM

Ecofeminism (third wave of feminism, 1974) is a branch of feminism that sees environmentalism, and the relationship between women and Earth, as foundational to its analysis and practice. It places emphasis on gender to analyse relationships between humans and the natural world. It was coined in 1974 by French feminist writer, Françoise d'Eaubonne. It encourages the idea of a feminist ecology, where there is no dominant position of power, but rather, egalitarian, collaborative society.

My ecofeminist analysis explores the connections between women and nature through art and philosophy. It addresses the parallels between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women as it speaks about the undervalued role that women have and will continue to play in revealing connections between living systems. Just like my work does, ecofeminism alludes to the idea of women as the curators of nature, and emphasizes that both women and nature must be respected.

In the 1970s, early ecofeminists discussed that the effects of capitalism did not benefit women, and caused a split between nature and culture, a split that can only be healed by the feminine instinct for nurture and holistic knowledge of nature's processes.

Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include, but are not limited to ecofeminist art, social justice, political philosophy, and poetry.

EcoFemArt

Diagram

My work lies horizontal to ecofeminism art in that it perceives the natural world as a woman. The treatment from patrichical ruling on the natural world has been one of total exploitation- figuratively representing the social and political supression of women. In the 1970's women around the world congregated together in an effort to break the "continuum of Eurocentric patriarchal capitalist exploitation of natural resources, women, and of indigenous peoples". Ecofeminist art was harnessed as a powerful vehicle to further project the theory of ecofeminist philosophy, which is something I have exercised in my project Gaia.

Book's On Ecofeminism

Essay's On Ecofeminism

Graphic

Influential Ecofeminist's

Ecofeminists


OBJECT-ORIENTED ONTOLOGY

Ontology: the philosophical study of being, the nature of existence.

Object-oriented ontology (OOO) is a 21st Century Heidegger influenced school of thought. It is a philosophical movement suggesting that all non-human objects, animals, environments exist independently from human perception. It reacts upon the reality that humans tend to believe that non-human objects are as real as we perceive them to be. OOO challenges settled ways of thinking, those being that humans are central to the success of the non-humans objects, animals and environment around them, and thus, the welfare of the planet.

OOO is an ecological viewpoint that rejects any idea of human specialness as simple arrogance. A world of OOO is one full of beings acting on one another according to their own goals, motivations that cannot be known by others. Just like OOO, Gaia asserts a radical and imaginative realism that claims that things do exist beyond the purview of human conception (Kerr, D 2016). This existence is almost entirely inaccessible to our understanding, but it is the curiosity of artist’s that succeeds in translating it to others. I believe artists hold a sixth sense that picks up the existence of all surrounding non-human things. And it is our responsibility as artists to protect the existence of these things.

My work is influenced by this school of thought in that I give Gaia human like qualities in an attempt to encourage audiences to empathise with her and the reasons behind her fabrication (the fragility of Earth). My views upon the world stem from my rejection of the habit that our species have of thinking about things only in terms of the effects that they have on us. To me, this is a tragic and limited worldview that has caused irreversible damage to the well-being of our natural counterparts on Earth. Gaia strives to be inclusive of all the elements that exist around us, and imagines the multiverse of beings as one. She does this through weaving independent ecosystems together to illustrate a unified reality, physical and philosophical, that cannot be reduced. Gaia raises questions about whether non-human entities experience their existence in a way that lies outside our own human-centric definition of consciousness.

"The world is not the world as manifest to humans; to think a reality beyond our thinking is not nonsense, but obligatory.” (Harman, G)

Philosophers

Art and Object-Oriented Ontology

OOO speaks to artists very loudly, as it supports their unconditional attempts of revealing systems and patterns in non-human entities. OOO is aesthetic and is harnessed through art as a vehicle to converse with audiences. Can artists succeed in giving their works a consciousness and encouraigng empathy from the viewer? These kinds of questions are integral to an artists personal success. OOO artwork's try to educate audiences about how objects exist, act and live beyond the realm of human perception. Artworks are a perfect example of OOO, whereby a non-human object (the artwork) exist independently from human perception. The artwork projects it's power over the objects around it (audience), creating a push-pull relationship between viewer and artwork.

Art

Influences in the OOO Movement

Essay's on Object-Oriented Ontology