2008 ANZAC FEATURE ARTIST : VITRINE INSTALLATION
TOWARDS ANOTHER SUMMER

An installation by Georgina Watson

23 April - 1 June 2008

The term ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) is often synonymous with images of a bloody war, youth, loss and freedom.

To honour and remember the sacrifice of the young and old who fell in the battle of Gallipoli and other World War I Campaigns, Waikato Museum is proud to have initiated an annual feature artist to respond to some aspect of the ANZAC commemorations held annually on April 25th.

The inaugural Anzac Artist in 2007 was Mark Curtis who has become well known for the use of glitter as a medium for some of his work. His exuberant glitter carpet of poppies was a tribute to the glory of the young men who died in Flanders field.

This year’s invited artist is Georgina Watson, an emerging talent in the field of curating and installation art. Her work is based upon text by Janet Frame, Towards Another Summer. This work finds the artist as a stranger to the horrors of war, trying to find some kind of visual connection to it. It is a gentle-spirited approach to a subject which cannot fully be defined by words or even pictures.

Artist's Statement

This installation by Georgina Watson is a response to an excerpt of writing by Janet Frame, Towards Another Summer.

Towards Another Summer

Mostly they talked of the War as if it were a place set far across the sea, like San Francisco or Honolulu, and every few years in history soldiers travelled there to be there and when you talked of all the soldiers who had ever fought in all the years you spoke of them as having been ‘at the Wars’. Many of the fairy tales began, ‘An old soldier, home from the Wars’. They went away as young boys, they came home aged, with grey hair, wooden legs and walking sticks…

Yet from the way people talked I knew the War wasn’t a place like San Francisco or Honolulu, it was something which moved like an iceberg or a cloud; it was invisible, not moving in the same direction, like a river or keeping the same shape like a train on the railway line, but always changing, perhaps growing arms and legs and a face then loosing them or having them blotted out; perhaps putting down a root into the garden or the road or into water- the sea, rivers, and staying there growing tall, blossoming, then withering; blown here and there by the wind; entering people, becoming people, stealing from them, adding to them, changing the shape of their lives: that was the war. It pursued forever, while people tried to escape from it; they sang ‘Pack up your troubles’ and ‘Oh My I don’t want to die, I want to go home.

Janet Frame - Towards Another Summer

As Janet frame describes her dislocated sense of what war meant to her as a child, she conjures up images of a moving mass of people, caught up in some invisible toil, in a far off land. This imagery resonates with me and my non-experience of war. I can relate to her confused perception of war, and I am interested in the imagery that she creates through her writing.

After having read that particular passage, I imagined in my head a dense, shimmering throng of objects, whirring with some sorts of vibrating movement, tumbling over themselves.

For my work to embody Janet Frame's description of war, I wanted for it to  hold some relation to war visually. By employing the model airplane as my motif, it is at once very familiar to us, but serves the dual purpose of representing notions of war that is far removed from our lived experience.

Georgina Watson
2008

ARTIST’S BIO

Solo Shows

2007
Window Gallery, Wintec, The piano Party
Installation and social sculpture.

2007
Window Gallery, Wintec, You Tube
A video installation.

Group Shows

2007
Ariki- 30 easy pieces
Group show for fundraising

2007
Platform01- Bid on me
Group show for fundraising

Curatorial

2006
The yellow Submarine, Yawn, Yawn, Yawn
Club night and art exhibition in collaboration with Mole Music, Featuring work by Glen Leslie, Joel Thompson, Fiona Hayworth and Alice Alva

2006
The Yellow Submarine, Yawn, Yawn, Yawn
Club night and short film screening  in collaboration with Mole Music. Featuring projections by Michelle Saville, Snakes being, Kieran Mangan, and Rosie Percival with bands Fighting the shakes and Radical G.

2007
Platform01, The Party
A 6-event collaborative exhibition featuring Glen Leslie, Noodles, Joel Thompson, Kieran Mangan, Alice Alva, Kelly Mawston, Ayesha Green, Lance Harris, Lance Jagusch, The Lookie Loos, Ministry of Hypocrisy, MC Stormtroopa, Sora Shima and Mike Crook.