A Net, a Nest, the Things We Carried. (Exhibition Text)

Rychèl Thérin Scott, 2022. 

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Process: Collaboration: It takes two to tango. 

 

Quand les cimes de notre ciel se rejoindront/ Ma maison aura un toit.

When the peaks of our sky come together/ My house will have a roof.

(Eluard, 1944).

 

I am of my mother’s body, she is of her mother’s body, therefore I am of my grandmothers body. Of course her memories are also mine. They are just obscured by time. (LoCascio, 2020.)

 

Ko Hikurangi te Maunga Hikurangi is the mountain…

Ko Waiapu te Awa Waiapu is the river…

Ko Hourota te Waka Horouta is the canoe…

Ko Ngāti Porou te Iwi Ngāti Porou is the tribe…

Ko te  Whānau a Raikairoa, Ngai Taharora me te Whānau a Iritekura nga Hapū

Whānau a Raikairoa, Ngai Taharora and Whānau a Iritekura are the sub tribes…

Ko Mihikoinga te Marae Mihikoinga is the place….

Ko Taharora te Tangata Taharora is the ancestor…

Ko Hans rāua ko Harata Jahnke ōku Tīpuna Hans and Harata Jahnke are my grandparents… 

Ko Ken rāua ko Viki Thérin ōku Mātua Ken and Viki Thérin are my parents…

Ko Rychél Thérin ahau. I am Rychèl Thérin,

Rychel Therin - Pepeha: my geneological locator

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Geneology and inheritance is a funny thing, we can interpret it in entirely different ways. It was strange to be paired with someone who understood the concept of whakapapa, even if they called it by a different name. It was helpful even; I enjoyed not having to explain why genealogy is just a given in my work. I wonder if Monica did too? If you acknowledge your past, your culture and your inheritance, it can be that you are never doing anything alone. 

 

So, when the peaks of our skies came together, we gave our nest a roof. We gave our net an anchor, so it would not be washed away in the wind. We gave our shipwreck an ocean, so it would not miss the tide. We gave the pool a reflection, so narcissus would come. We fortified the ufer so beauty would not tumble in to drown. We braided spines on spines, we wove them and pinned them and broke them, we braced them back together.

 

Turns out our fingers have been doing this for generations, weaving human stories together, one row after the next. 

 

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Materiality: Collect, inherit, hoard. 

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Me matemate a marama te tangata i te ao nei. 

May you die like the moon, so that your soul may rise again. (Māori Proverb)

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Use it or put it to the back. Save it for later. 

 

We do not or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable. Rather we need and desire souvenirs… of events whose materiality has escaped us, events that thereby exist only through the invention of narrative. (Stewart, 1984)​
 

a couple of hoarders got put in a room. the space was too big, they brought some things in to keep them company. they sorted through the things, arranging them by colour, by feel. they looked at the materiality of their collective hoard, evaluating which things were most natural, and which were down right synthetic. then came a joy test - what could not be left behind? well, nothing, naturally, because this couple of artists were by their very nature, hoarders. rather, it gave them a chance to choose what would be brought out first.

 

EVERYTHING ELSE CAN WAIT.

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What the fuck are we making? the beauty of just getting on with it. 

 

Don’t take yourself so seriously.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

Let your fingers do the work, they’ve been at it for generations.

Thread the fucking needle already. 

 

I’d gladly say that Monica lead the way on just getting on with it. She doesn’t work with pre- sketches or ideas, she lets her materials lead the work… We had our materials, we hung up a frame, we made a start. The banana fiber spine is based on the whiriwhiri plait on the inside of one of my great grandmothers kete - or rather, the base spine of the basket that holds all the harakeke strips together. I had circled back to whakapapa, we both cracked on. 

 

To paraphrase Rosanne Cash, in making this piece we were individual women, working out the problems of our lives and art through the thread (Giliberti, 2019).

 

This type of process is still new to me. Not so much the relying on intuition to make artwork, but rather the process of thread and fibre. It reminded me of my struggles with painting and how I ditched painting because it took too long. I’m currently in combat with a very stubborn and tenacious embroidery for the same reason, I don’t like to sit still (with myself). I do not like to be still. Monica and my process of working through this piece taught me that I can braid, weave, stitch and adorn, and do not need to be afraid to be still, if anything, you should just make the damn thing bigger. And play Kendrick Lamar. 

 

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Let your thoughts be content. The art of conversation, the art of silence.  

 

…not only our memories, but also the things we have forgotten are “housed”. Our soul is an abode. And by remembering “houses” and “rooms”, we learn to “abide” within ourselves (Bachelard, 1994).

 

We started out with a frame, two meters high, one meter wide. Monica had had it made for a previous project, it was this size so she could fit inside of it. Now that we hung it perpendicular to the floor, we could both sit or stand within the boundary. What ever we made would carry us both. 

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Archetypally [sic], to untangle something requires a decent, the following of a labyrinth down into the underworld or to the place where matters are revealed in entirely new ways. One must follow what at first appears to be a convoluted process, but in effect is a profound pattern for renewal. In fairy tales, to loosen the girdle, undo the knot, untie and untangle means to understand something previously closed to us, to understand its applications and uses, to become mage-like, a knowing soul (Pinkola Estés, 1992).

 

To make this piece, we played many games of give and take, adding and subtracting whilst making and un-making then remaking the vessel we were crafting to carry our thoughts in. The un-doing of things allows for you to see the mistakes, re-group and re-organise. It also reminds you that sometimes the spontaneous accidents are the best, and if your vagus nerve says leave it, you should probably listen. 

 

Identity is changed by the journey; our subjectivity is recomposed… [it] is not to do with being but with becoming. (Sarup, 1996).

 

The piece which started as a potential boat, became a vessel, a net, a shipwreck, a nest, a seedpod, a cacao, a shell, a cocoon. The materiality of the piece is what keeps this work constantly becoming. 

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