INTERVIEW # 1, Mish Meijers + Tricky Walsh
I met Mish Meijers and Tricky Walsh in the summer of 2011 while participating in a show curated by Las Hermanas Iglesias at Flux Factory. I had encountered their works before meeting them at the urging of the Hermanas sisters. Their works and practice, both solo and collaborative, impressed me; I could sense that they were kindred spirits: storytellers, makers and advocates of absurdity. Meeting them only reinforced this.
Mish Meijers is an inter-disciplinary artist based in Hobart, Tasmania. Her solo practice experiments conceptually and physically with surface tension: how one material conforms or abrades against another. She constructs sculptural tableaux with an alchemical and discordant sensibility. Her work distorts the inherent worth and significance of her objects with regard to popular culture, gender determination and functionality.
Tricky Walsh, who is also based in Hobert, Tasmania, employs interdisciplinary methods and materials in her work. Concerned with the tensions that develop from seemingly oppositional forces; she implements two and three-dimensional processes as a means of describing physical and philosophical systems of discovery and invention. She creates conceptual environments and machines reminiscent of architectural structures, woven with aspects of personal narrative.
Meijers was a 2009 CAST studio resident and in 2008 she was awarded the McCulloch studio residency in Paris. Walsh is currently on the CAST gallery program committee and is represented by Dick Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania. They both collaborate with Alicia King in the installation/performance group, The Holy Trinity.
They have been working together for seven years with their ongoing collaborative project “Henri Papin – the Collector”, that examines social anthropology through the superfiction of an obsessive character and his psychological schema. They recently started “The Subterranean Plant Society” - a fictional society that promotes a new collaborative practice focused on spatial and material concepts as governing forces in their artistic integration. Meijers and Walsh co-chaired and founded the Artist Run Initiative Six_a in Hobart until its closure in 2011.
Websites:
www.mishmeijers.com
www.trickywalsh.com
(Henri Papin 6: Schema, Installation detail, 2010, timber, found objects)
(M) Can you talk about the link between your two incomplete degrees in architecture and art and how it has influenced your practice as an artist?
(T) I guess the thing that fascinates me about architecture is the scale and scope of being able to construct massive sculptural forms that have a very direct opportunity for people engagement – and on a fairly ritualised and intimate level. Unfortunately what frustrates me about it is that this is so rarely a considered aspect, and that much of it falls to creating mediocre spaces that inhibit creative living. If I was to be completely honest I think that I was just too young (at the time of studying) to actually be able to consider those aspects either, and somewhere along the way I sacrificed the livability for the creativity – which is as irresponsible, I think. I think that it takes an awesome degree of knowing and maturity to strike a balance between the two essential needs. As a result, not many people do it – or not particularly well (in my opinion) and it allows the construction of hugely monumental developments that consider too little the impact on people or the site/environment.
I guess what I do – and how the two co-exist in my mind is that I tend to create relatively macro-scaled built environments and objects that don’t impact negatively on either people or the environment. I like the scale because for me it is almost more about the concept than the realisation, and I don’t have to take responsibility for some huge eternal impact. Most of the materials that I use are fairly ephemeral; they can break, fold, stain, and degrade if not looked after – and environmentally, I think that is an element of my work also. I use timber (in its many and varied forms) because that’s where I was initially trained, but also because it is such a warm, human material that we have an interdependent relationship with. The fact that we so often forget this will probably be the thing, which undoes us as a species... but I digress...
Fundamentally the connection probably is that I don’t work particularly well in institutional models, and that working against an adversarial body and a dominant ideology appeals to me more. Which is probably childish, but that’s how I’m rolling.
(Tricky Walsh, The Wasp Project, 2009, timber and balsa wood)
(M) You have a love of words and stories that present in your writing and comics, how do you think this filters down into other areas of your practice?
(T) Hmm. Initially I’m going to state that I’m more of a reader than a writer. But, overarching that I am most interested in communication. I love comics because they use the written word alongside visual communicators but also (when they’re really good) they allow a kind of slippage between the two, which encourages alternative meanings. Like – I’m stating this, and I’m showing you this, but there is the slightest discrepancy between either’s exacting nature so what I’m actually saying is this. That, and storytelling is basically how we’ve evolved historically as a civilisation, and how we still remember collectively the stops that have gotten us this far.
I think it presents in my work in both overt and subtle ways. I think that the comics and writing speaks for itself, but I think I also use it sculpturally in much the same way – the visual components fulfill the same function, should they be either 3 or 2 dimensional, and I do tend (I’ll admit) to provide overly verbose descriptions that I see acting more as adjunct information than pure explanation.
The collaborative project Henri Papin that we work on is a superfiction, and has hosted both implied and overt narratives. I’m excited about the next couple of incarnations of the project because the constructed/overt aspects will come more and more into play. One element is a kind of endurance performance piece that the audience will be able to engage in on a level that will allow subconscious integration into the character of Henri. We will be writing and visually communicating in a kind of stream-of-consciousness way from inside a segregated chamber within the installation. I’m actually pretty excited at the idea of having to maintain a written fictional dialogue for a number of days. Imagine the descent into madness (!) Along the way we’re also working with a scriptwriter and an actor to develop a series of short theatrical works based on the character. Theatre works much in the same way, I think, and works particularly well within the framework that we’ve constructed for the project.
(M) Why do you make art? What value do you see in creating work?
Okay. Not to sound like a proselytizing crazy person, but I think that art is of the utmost importance to the world and the evolution of our species.
Even bad art is beneficial.
Anything that challenges the way we live or look at things, anything that contextualises ourselves or our surroundings, anything that records, creates or remembers history, anything that allows us for a minute to inhabit a previously unimagined space, anything that invents alternative visions or realities, which accesses and informs us of things we have no access to, which utilises tools or concepts we know or have no knowledge of in ways that reinforce our knowledge or confront it, which envelops us in truths and beauty, which provides meaty ugliness and nightmares, which makes our blood boil; our heart sing; our brain work harder, any thing that groups us on one side of the fence, or the other, or allows us to infiltrate the greater whole, or to be wholly independent.
Art does these things, singularly or concurrently, it does it for little reward or recompense, it does it because it – and its creators/participants/audiences determine that it must, that the world is slightly less without it and that without it we would fall into routine/apathy/complacency. That without it we would all feel a little less alive, a little less informed, a little less; full stop.
I do it because it is what I know how to do, and it gives me both the most profound joy and humbling solemnity, and for me, it’s the only thing that does.
(M) You have a solo and several collaborative projects as part of your practice, can you explain the structure of each project, your place in it and list 5 positive and 5 negative for each project?
(T) I’m going to ignore most of the question and be slightly more conversational because really, my word limit is going to blow all the way out. I’m also not going to go very far into my solo practice because I see the collab stuff as extensions of what and who I am as an artist.
1. Henri Papin – I’m a co-creator, collaborator with Mish. I personally feel that where the character of Henri falls into dual personalities, encompassed of a conscious and unconscious self, that I perhaps inhabit more of the unconscious, but I can’t be sure. Henri for me allows me to investigate the darker parts of humanity, something which I find hard to do when hampered by gender expectations. We’ve been talking about Henri as a feminist issue in that within the genres that he circumnavigates (film; particularly horror, literature etc) there is such a strong tradition of woman-as-victim or woman-as-hysterical-perpetrator that in order to construct a truly neutral observer it had to be male. I truly believe that women are harder to make invisible – particularly in environments, which are dark or unseemly. I suppose that I could work to challenge that conception, but I’d rather be able to ask the questions instead and get on with the larger story.
2. TSPS – (The Subterranean Plant Society – Myself and Mish) is a kind of Royal society of invention and discovery where theories are ‘proved’ in a creative realm and disbelief is heartily suspended. This is a relatively new project for us, which I am really excited about. It lets me get my nerd on. It’s a meeting point between art and science, which I like, since so much of invention stems from the same place. This project is pretty aligned with my solo interests at the moment; (which is probably why I’m so content within it) in the construction of devices and machines, and fields of research which are focused on that point between mysticism and science; a kind of halfway melding of technology and superstition. At some stage we’re planning a series of debates and paper submissions to audiences, which will allow a more performative edge.
(The Subterranean Plant Society, Geographical marking and locating device for the recording of significant sites of empathic energies, 2011, balsa wood, papier pulp, paint, latex, found objects)
3. THT (The Holy Trinity - Myself, Mish and Alicia King) is a three-person installation/performance project that also looks at mysticism but from a more actively spiritual perspective. We’ve created a belief system, and created ourselves as the gods of it, and recruit inductees into the system. It’s kind of like if a religion was thought up by three nerdy little kids. There are heaps of rainbows and kitties and BMXs and terrible audience participation. It’s a lot of fun.
(The Holy Trinity. 1200cc mary. 2009. BMX, timber, performance, DVD, dirt, found objects)
(M) What ideal question about yourself would you like to make up for yourself here?
(T) That is a terrible question to ask, let it be said.
I guess that mostly the feedback or questions I get asked are about my working processes – they can be fairly laboursome, and it’s the physicality of the work that gets a lot of attention – level of detail, blah blah; whereas the conceptual basis for the piece can quite often be overlooked in the face of that.
I guess that I’d like to be asked more about that.
(T) Why don't you exhibit your drawings since (I believe) they are such an inherent and defining part of your practice? Also - where do you see them fitting with the rest of your practice? Are they related or separate?
(M) Well, Tricky, you know I don’t like to exhibit my drawings but I do on occasion show people my drawings in a one-to-one viewing and I have put some up on my website. Which, I do consider as a form of exhibiting work. But mainly, its because I find them too intimate and too personal to consider exhibiting.
Some of my drawings have yet to go through a filtering system that I require for my other work, (installation, sculpture and/or the collaborative projects). Compared to these, drawing is not hampered by a need for logistics, time, possibility, practical concerns or project management. To draw, all I need are drawing implements, a piece of paper and my choice of a planned approach to the blank page.
Also I do not feel there is an exhibiting forum for them here. They don’t seem to fit in Tasmania, which is not to say that they wouldn’t fit elsewhere; but since I have a demanding practice otherwise, my drawings have increasingly become a private domain.
I think that they’re related in the sense that I use the area of the white page as a kind of site for the composition of my drawn objects. I guess that mostly they are almost installation based in the sense that I am trying to configure an experience within the drawing. I see all of my works and their compositions as being based on drawings.
(T) Your practice and the way you approach it are quite baffling to me sometimes - can you verbalise your process when it comes to object making (sculpture and installation) - what dictates? materials? or concepts?
(M) Well, that’s nice that after 10 years together I can still be mysterious or baffling in some way…I am going to go with mysterious rather than baffling though. I will try to explain. Firstly, like my drawing practice I have a number of different approaches on how I will make a work. But mainly I have recurring, overarching interests and concepts that feature and roll around in my head for longer periods, and then I have more short-term ideas that feed into or abrade against these core concerns.
· 1 cup of a perverse desire to fight, reveal, engage and submit to a variety of systems, you can use the following flours including; the art world, subversive feminist ideals, religion, and institutional thinking.
· ½ cup of material chosen to illuminate concepts and formal concerns.
· ¼ cup of randomness, trusting my radio antenna for material inclusion and objects that will imply narrative whether actualized or other.
· 4 tbsp of shitcore/handcrafted aesthetic where the artists’ hand is apparent.
· 2 tbsp of ephemeral material such as sugar or something, which actively encourages the temporal nature of the work.
· I cup of fictional personality.
· 1 cup of acknowledging audience whether a real or imagined one.
· 1 cup of collaboration.
1. Beat the concept of work into submission by having a cavalcade of ideas flow in and get reasoned out again and again …this stage is really bad for sleeping and stressful until one idea holds over the others, (and I look at you Tricky and am envious of your process of decision making. Mine seems to be painful, which I have tried to change, but it seems this is my process. I am looking forward to this changing.)
2. Preheat the studio to preparation preparation preparation, clean the space, have everything ready to use, don’t push something if it doesn’t want to work, use materials you were not going to use but found instinctively in that moment.
3. Once I have the idea and materials combined in many ways, slowly adding and subtracting materials and objects over either a number of days or weeks until it is ready to rest.
4. Leave the studio for a few days or week to come in with fresh eyes to view, change as required. This may take several weeks or one day depending on the work.
5. Ready for exhibition, always pack extra random materials to finish a fresh approach in situ.
My work relies on active Hunting, Gathering and the three states of being: Alert, Semi and Subconscious in order to survey my everyday experiences. In short, I see myself as a radio signal receiver (info in) and transmitter (artwork out).
Somewhere in the middle I act as the filtration system which arranges the external elements of specified research, random conversations, books I am reading, movies I watching and any physical materials that tweak my interest.
(Mish Meijers, from the SETI calling series, 2011, taxidermy wallaby and found objects)
(T) What inspires you the most and why and how? In either negative or positive ways.
(M) More than anything I love to be inspired; whether it’s from being so excited about something new or its so awesomely terribly that I am inspired through anger to re- construct and conceptualise a solution to the issue I see. Being bored by artwork – sucks, I call it the zero-zone; this is when the artwork will not remain in my memory at all.
I actually love work that is beautifully problematic. Similarly I am also inspired by work that I perceive as opposite of me, clean, minimal, defined.
Being confronted with something new or troubling in its conception, whether it’s an artwork or not excites me most of all. I love new information. I see incredible value in moving forward in all fields and striving to move forward in our society as being an intrinsically creative experience.
I find that disappointment in an organization or a system creates in me an irresistible need to create possible solutions for. It’s the problems I find the most interesting. Whilst I am not arrogant or silly enough to state I am making new or troubling work – I strive to do that. I want to go back to study but am more interested in working external to a system that I perceive as uncreative and risky for artists.
(T) What's your earliest memory of art? And what is the mark/scar that it has left behind?
(M) Mmmmm that’s a good question that has me a little stumped. The earliest memory of art was when Mum took me to the Ballet, it was a magical other worldly experience. I don’t think this left a defining mark though, I think that moment came around 10 years of age, we had moved from the city to a farm, new friend came over for a sleep over and we drew together. I remember that we both spent a lot of time designing and finishing the work and I think the moment of sharing a skill with my friend validated and marked the both of us. I think we both made the decision that weekend to be artists. We are still friends, regardless of the tyranny of years and distance.
If I think about my personality and it in reference to art, this is weirdly relevant, I like to be autonomous and playful in a group/community environment. I value peer assessment, other artists that I respect for differing qualities for opinions above all others.
(T) How do you think we even manage to function as a collaborative team considering our processes and outcomes seem to be almost diametrically opposed? ;)
(M) Welllllllllllll, I think we work well because we are so different in our approaches.
You – spend time researching on an area of interest, work up your idea, do a drawing and stick to it. You often go into detail on your projects and are quite fixed.
I - spend some time researching an area of interest, spend weeks in agony spitting and spewing ideas until finally I stay with one that I am happy with. I also drive you nutso bunko whilst I do this, cause I verbalise and am stressed the whole time, you try to make me feel better…sorry poppet.
Working in the studio and production
You – get studio in new and beautiful formation, sit down and work doggedly until you are allowed to finish.
I – spend time making an ok space and making sure I have all my elements and materials around, then I leave. When no one else is there, I put some music on and dance around and place the elements at periods of approx 2 hours, then I leave, then I am back. I like to call it the bee to flower approach.
I think we work well together because we admire the other for the skill that defines them – I think yours is precision, detail and craft, I think mine is instinct, broadness and editing.
(Henri Papin 6: Schema, Installation detail, 2010, timber, found objects, fake snow)
