To Amplify a Context
My work is an exploration of geopolitical space that comprises of analyzing, proscribing, and forecasting the way power is used over territory. This work is an examination of strategic, (official and unofficial) marking of terrain by individuals and a society. The sculptures, drawings, films and composite media works I make are a means of investigating these conundrums.
At the time of writing I am developing sculptural pieces and composite media projects in different locations. Each project is particular in the way it articulates connection to place, site, peoples, histories, and cultures. These works are about transition, duration, construction, terminals, airports and demarcation of spaces. They question mechanisms of exchange and delve into a resistance to proximity.
I am working on a research project that examines the juxtaposition of the petroglyphs (rock art) around Karratha and Roebourne, to the adjacent industrial conglomeration of heavy rail and port facilities that mark this site as the engine room of Western Australia’s oil and gas activity. The two elements of the site meet in a collision of time and place that sees them merge, disappear and reappear, torn apart. The artworks generated in this project will be shown in Melbourne at the launch of the New Design Hub in mid October.
This research work relates to several projects I have been working on, which have been forming under the broad title of ‘Arrivals and Departures’, which is inspired by the way airports of the world, mark the ground and operate as sites of rapid exchange of people and goods. In August this year I have work at the Biennale of Architecture in Venice titled 100 years Future City. The work I have contributed is a speculation a European airport, and its return as an airfield, a fly in fly out market garden, emergency relief station and future drone port. This is a speculation of non utopian futures.
Other projects have arisen out of my examination of airports sites. Currently a series of twelve A1 graphics works are on show in the ‘Electronic Salon’, at the Los Angeles Centre of Digital Art while a film and sound installation titled TULLA, (night fly over Melbourne airport) is part of an exhibition ‘Random Act of Time’ at Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana.
A recent group of projects resulted in exhibitions in Jordan with fellow artist Darryn Ansted. These included Migration of Ideas, Remember Project and Sentences on the Banks and Other Stories, at Dar Alanda Gallery and Darat Al Funun, in Amman. The work I developed was a series of small-scale sculptural pieces based on aerial views of neighbouring airport runways of the region, this proved to be challenging, given maps are constantly being redrawn, ( see Amanda Calvo review Jordan Times, Juy 4 th 2010). A work was acquired by the National Musuem of Art Jordan, while the artist book, is now in the Darat Al Funun collection.
Following a lecture about my Arrivals and Departures work at Sint Lucas School of Architecture in Brussels last year, I received an invitation to work with a group of Urban Designers in Paris on a project about mobility that is to be shown in Paris at Roissy Airport. All of this work has come through invitations, often from people I don’t know very well. However the work strives to be direct and it resonates with ideas. Oscillation between locations places Roebourne next to Roissy Airport, Maribor in dialogue with Melbourne, Los Angeles speaking to Belmont is my approach of undoing, that is constantly making and remaking aspects of my practice.
Perth City plays an important role as a feeder site for the accelerating activities of the North West. It is from the Perth airport site, along with others around the continent, that individuals fly to and from work sites in the Pilbara in regular working shifts. One may speculate on the contrast between petroglyphs and runways to question what is similar and what is different. These ancient inscriptions carry the power and purpose of human marks across time, the airport carries an expression of power of another kind.
Jon Tarry
In addition to his active artistic practice, Jon Tarry is Associate Professor, Chair of Visual Arts at The University of Western Australia and a PhD candidate at RMIT.