two shores push back and keep us distant

Two shores push back and keep us distant
made in collaboration with Liam James
2018
Kings Artist Run, Naarm/Melbourne

Sea salt crystals from lutruwita / Tasmania on gallery walls

Photos by Chris Bowes

These materials began in lutruwita / Tasmania on Palawa Sea Country. The artists acknowledge the Palwa / Pakana and Tasmanian Aboriginal Community as the custodians of this Country, and the people of the Kulin Nation where these materials were recieved.

It is just becoming warm enough to swim in the sea. Although usually cause for happiness, it is warmer earlier every year. The ocean warms with salt tears but it is still too cold to swim for long.

That part of the sea that accompanied us to shore dries to a tight crust of salt in the sun. My lips tingle, tongue thick with the taste of it. When we leave this room, the salt from our bodies remains. Two shores push back and keep us distant.

Two shores push back and keep us distant is a ruminative investigation into art making processes and experience. The installation presents nothing but itself, resulting in a resonating silence, where once there was intent. The slow growth of the salt room speaks to ideas about time passing and a world changing, about ownership and belonging, the presence of something or the absence of something, of people being there, or of no-one being there. A body of water. A body in the water. A body without water. We have never been so thirsty.