Wiki tua waru, Akomanga tua rua.
Task
Considering the works of Dale Harding (1) and Yoko Ono (2).
IND: Use the other artist’s method to produce your own work. Document both resulting works and archive into your blog
1st Artist: Dale Harding
https://artguide.com.au/dale-harding-discusses-his-incredible-year/
Some of the works Harding has produced this year are collaborations between Harding and his family …
‘Dale Harding Discusses His Incredible Year’. Art Guide Australia, 28 Sept. 2017, https://artguide.com.au/dale-harding-discusses-his-incredible-year/.
Response
2nd Artist: Yoko Ono
“But at the same time, I immediately thought it’s a good subject for me as an artist,” said Ono. “I wanted to share that feeling I had in my heart with the audience and invite them to participate.”
‘“Protect the Persecuted”: Behind Yoko Ono’s Impactful Refugee Art Project’. The Guardian, 21 June 2019, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/21/protect-the-persecuted-behind-yoko-onos-impactful-refugee-art-project.
Response
My initial idea was a “Grapefruit” or “Acorn” style invitation to carry out an action. I really wanted to have an environmental message in this, so I considered something like this:
- Take a compass and go down to the ocean.
- Look due South from the very edge of the water.
- Consider Global Warming, and how the melting ice at the South Pole is directly linked to the ocean you are standing by
Then I thought about another of Ono’s work:
I decided to combine the two ideas. Instead of providing instructions, I would just provide a place to stand, but let people know they were facing South when they were standing there. I would let their imagination do the rest. I made a stencil:
I initially though about applying the stencil to the seawall using biodegradable paint, but when I went down to the beach I had another idea. I wanted to put the footprints directly onto the sand, so that they would be ephemeral. I did not want to do this with paint – it felt like precisely the wrong medium – so instead I took some charcoal from my woodburner and ground it up. I found the effect to be quite striking.
I then realised that standing in the footprints would destroy them. That felt right.
It was genuinely only then that I realised that I’d inadvertently created a “Dad joke”…