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Swallowing The Ground

‘Swallowing the ground’ research project.

A project that interrogates temporal and elemental forces acting upon the materiality of artworks imbedded in a landscape.

The works arise within the context of a feminist ethos of responsivity toward ecology. In particular, the notion of weathering and propositions around ‘the temporal frame of “thick time”—a transcorporeal stretching between present, future, and past—in order to reimagine our bodies as archives of climate and as making future climate possible’ (Neimis and Walker 2014).

This longditudinal research project will encompass the development of a series of visual artworks which respond to the ‘weathering of sculptures’. Sculptural artworks that centre on types of anthropomorphism and ‘proxy’ for the figure. The artworks hint at surrealist and science fiction configurations of an abstracted body. Within the various forms of my art processes, I seek to reflect on the ecologies of living forms. Such as, utilising the concept of morphogenesis (a biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape) as a metaphor for the interagency of organic and inorganic materials.

Merging my sculptural practice with photography and video processes. Focussing on presenting a transmutation between worlds, the artwork seeks to emulate the visceral qualities of bodies as matter, building a simulacrum of disembodied forms that are evolving through various states. This research reconsiders the ontologies of bodies, as a site of constant merger and transformation a highly contested space between the individual and its interrelated jurisdictions.

Murmur series:

The murmur series commenced in 2023 as a test recording and has been extended to begin again on the full moon of 2025.

This particular artwork is a digital image that arrived after a number of pinhole devices were invested, for months, deep within the grounds of this forest.  These initial images have been created by burying cameras in a forest for 30 days to record the ecologies interaction with the process of silver halide recording.

As the photographic paper within is exposed to limited light of the piercing it begins to act as a material witness of the days passing. Within their hidden burial site they wait and weather, patiently receiving the palimpsest of light and a type of echo within their holding space. 

The recording devices are not only seeing but listening in and vibrating with the murmurs and moans of the forest. They pick up from the burial grounds an expanded imprint of dust, microbes and mercurial metallic interaction upon the photographic material, translating an intaglio of their journey from invested silver halides to expanded prints.

The photographic recording devices imprint a creative dialogue with its layered environmental, temporal and energetic fields. Translating an intaglio of their journey from invested silver halides to expanded prints. Through this working process, I have been considering the Shinto concept of ‘yamabiko’ – described in Japanese culture as the phenomenon of a delayed spirit echo in mountains and valleys. In my slow movements and deeper contemplations of photography exploring the fleeting ephemeral moment rather than an object of permanence. Considering the  transcription of this material notion around the echo and the answering voices of the trees.

Tara Gilbee Murmur Series (3) 2023 Solagraph paper recording printed as Digital Print on cotton rag Dimensions approx. 594 x 841 mm Private Collection.Image credit Tara Gilbee.
Tara Gilbee Murmur Series 2023 (unique state pinhole photograph) Silver Gelatin Print, 10x15cm approx. Image credit Tara Gilbee.

Contraction series:

Tara Gilbee Contraction series 2023 Lumen print on expired photographic paper. 20.32 x 25.4 cm Image credit Tara Gilbee

Aterial group show – Parallel Projects, The Art Room, Melbourne.

16 March – 13th April 2023.

‘Contracted series’

A small suite of works which will be developed further as the research project Swallowing the ground progresses. Through this creative series I am continuing a research project which explores the exhaustion and decay of mater,  following it as it reaches its limits. This research project was generously funded by Creative Victoria.

These mercurial sun prints are purposely left in a semi stabilised state after being imprinted on expired photographic paper.  They have active silver particles which are still responding to light and enacting their own erasure.

In the exhibition, the map of dream like imagery has begun to disappear as light exhausts the precarious alchemical impressions, it contracts and erases the promise of a fixed viewing.

The images on the photographic paper are a record of sculptural works left to weather in a forest. These sculptural bodies have been acting as a personal proxy for years now. They have slowly become an introduced species that records a strange temporal weathering and decay while placed within the home of a pine forest.

Within the gallery the artwork was install as one image is placed on top of another, so that the audience could witness the full exhaustion of the exposed image and each visitor who looks under at the next will slowly add erasing light to the one under cover. There is a type of archeological and conservation fragility left within this work. In order to shift the audience considerations away from a static viewing of the photograph to a more dynamic interplay with its material matrix.

Tara Gilbee Contraction series (installation detail) – Arterial Exhibition at Parallel Projects, Melbourne. Image Credit Ilona Nelson.