{"id":3008,"date":"2021-07-21T12:50:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T12:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2022-11-29T06:26:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T06:26:05","slug":"how-to-build-a-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/21\/how-to-build-a-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Meat Market | Rectifying Museology: ‘How To Build A Universe’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How to Build a Universe<\/i>\u00a0located itself at the Meat Market\u00a0\u2014\u00a0appropriate for an exhibition somewhat reflecting on space. For those unaware, the Meat Market is a stereotypically loveable Melbs venue: grungy, heritage-listed and, as its name suggests, an old centre of the meat trade. It\u2019s all clean now, and based in North Melbourne \u2013 a convenient suburb less visited than neighbouring Collingwood, Fitzroy, Brunswick \u2013 it hasn\u2019t lost its appeal. It\u2019s cool, voluminous, and peculiar charm fits for a sensorily satisfying exhibition experience. Unfortunately, my visit collided with the first day of lockdown no. 5. Fortunately, curator Eliza Coyle had a virtual tour on file to help me inhabit the space, as the affair between isolation and virtual engagement becomes the Victorian norm.<\/p>

Street-side, the a-frame with the title\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/i>\u00a0reads like an existential WikiHow article. After you invite yourself inside, the exhibition introduces itself as anything but instructional. The dark, spacious rooms are eery, with the spaced-out, spotlit, mostly monochrome artworks protruding an ominous non-reality.\u00a0<\/p>

Such a feeling isn\u2019t misplaced.\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/i>\u00a0sits at the borderlands between the assumed and the indefinite. Its premise speaks to deconstructing the museum \u2018universe\u2019 model, which emerged from sixteenth-century Europe and perpetually lived on in cultural institutions. The \u2018universe\u2019 uses the museum as epitomising and holding under its helm all (or the best of) \u2018world culture\u2019 through collecting (often stolen) cultural goods. In her catalogue essay, Coyle celebrates the curators who have challenged this colonist vision in recent years. In her exhibition, however, she circles back to pull it apart.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Chaohui Xie, 'Obliterating Ourselves,' 2021.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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How to Build a Universe<\/em>\u00a0endeavours to investigate the supposed authority (usually of Western perspective) of the \u2018universe\u2019 through creative interventions. To collude between the objective (science) and the invented (art), the exhibition presents four artists: Hannah Toohey, Jacqueline Felstead, Daniella Ruffino, and Chaohui Xie. Collectively, they tackle nationhood, citizenship, the underclass, and the climate crisis, but not toward a definite conclusion.\u00a0Rather, they inch toward an incomplete picture.\u00a0<\/p>

Coyle rationalises, \u201cThrough their works and experimentation, we can adopt multiple perspectives as if we\u2019re looking in at the world through a microcosm of different, speculative lenses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

I\u2019ll take a moment here to explore some history for non-museology people and break down some of\u00a0How to Build a Universe’s<\/em> theory. Museums have existed since at least classical times, but the form closest to their existence today emerged during the Renaissance. The elite (your princes and landlords et al.) looked across the sea in “quest for dominion over nature and their fellow man” (Peter Vergo, 1989). Dominion was the key to understanding the world and achieved through looting sold as expeditions to amass a considerable amount of objects (from art to bones) housed as\u00a0Cabinets of Curiosities<\/a>\u00a0(google it, some are wacky asf).\u00a0<\/p>

Contemporary museums have inherited past habits, including placing value on forensic items to tell a holistic story of nature and humankind. This isn\u2019t a hot take either. A museum as defined even now by Encyclopedia Britannica is an \u201cinstitution dedicated to preserving and interpreting the primary tangible evidence of humankind and the environment.\u201d Oof, what an absolute notion.<\/p>

In\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/em>,\u00a0Chaohui Xie counters this museological self-assuredness, positing\u00a0that one cannot see the foundation of culture.\u00a0Using coins collected from the NGV fountain (if you know, you know), she argues toward a “perpetual state of chaos” of cultures lost, devalued, and dislocated. Similarly, in her installation\u00a0Obliterate Ourselves<\/em>\u00a0(2021), she convolutes world borders. They tangle densely on the translucent perspex. She says, \u201cThe whole universe is called chaos\u2026 mankind fights to the death.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

Yet, cultural institutions still take themselves seriously in presenting the cr\u00e8me le cr\u00e8me of a universe not in shambles. I think of traditional Australian museums with their overtly educational static, permanent displays (I swear I\u2019ve memorised the insides of the Museum of South Australia from school field trips past) or state galleries (the NGVs<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0MOCAs<\/a>) convoluting the creativity of art and impartiality of science into a solemn mass that\u2019s just as dictatorially single visioned.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Jacqueline Felstead, 'Atlas 1-7,' 2019.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Contrarily, and for the sake of a case study from my perspective, artist-run galleries (in Melbourne, where I live and know the art world a little bit) don’t fixate so much. They\u2019re dynamic, almost emotional and neurotic, with experimental uncollected art responding to our surroundings rather than reinforcing a dominant worldview. These organisations are subject to their problematic past and presents too, but perhaps with less crust to crack off than the traditional museum\u2019s regiment. Maybe the space between the dichotomies\u00a0How to Build a Universe\u00a0explores is the intuition of knowing when to let go, and when to hold on.\u00a0<\/p>

\u201cI am interested in how we can wind back,\u201d says Danielle Ruffino, as quoted in the exhibition catalogue. The artist sensitively enquires into humankind\u2019s relationships with resources. Rejecting the crudeness of concrete mined from the earth, she labours to reuse by heating discarded oyster shells into a makeshift cement. The resulting\u00a0Endless\/ Column<\/em>\u00a0appears as an ancient Grecian ruin yet unabashedly looks forward: the antiquated is revived, the discarded is the future, the universe defies shelf life, betraying the depleting finite to extend forevermore.<\/p>

Instinctually, I\u2019d turn to an ARI over a museum clinging to the universe model (in its most traditional sense) to intellectually stimulate myself as I seek to relieve my hurting heart beholden to the dying world as Ruffino so melancholically explores in her art. Perhaps, I might walk out more confused with art\u2019s loose ends and abstract messaging compared to the absolution offered by the forthcoming museum exhibit. But, interestingly, I am still reaching out to a cultural institution to reckon with the universe, even if the chosen creative path feels muddled.\u00a0<\/p>

Jacqueline Felstead\u2019s\u00a0Falling Forms (Love without a receiver)<\/em>\u00a0nods to such visceral navigations to knowing, and deflects the stoicism of science. The artist uses 3D photogrammetric surveying of BANNF\u2019s mountains to chart the landscape\u2019s \u201cemotional, rather than quantifiable\u201d formations. As hung in\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/em>,\u00a0the shapes on her prints float as suspended forms rather than conquerable territories. Felstead\u2019s lands are opaque, fleeting, emotional \u2013 they cannot be held.\u00a0<\/p>

The \u2018universe\u2019 model is controlled, almost suffocating, in its imperialist overtones, concerned with straight-speaking empiricism.\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/em>\u00a0tugs at this impetus, asking how to materialise plural perspectives outside the strict dichotomy between art and science, between the replication and the organic, in cultural spaces.\u00a0<\/p>

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Hannah Toohey, 'Scuttle,' 2014.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The work of Hannah Toohey seems to grow and pester outside the categorisable neat.\u00a0Progeny<\/em>,\u00a0the first encountered object in the space,\u00a0looks like it is growing on the wall like black mould, alive and festering. At the same time, it seems soft and playful; the faux fur has a tactile celebratory quality, like party decor.\u00a0This\u00a0wild\u00a0childlike trait is also present in Toohey\u2019s\u00a0Scuttle<\/em>,\u00a0a collection of over 500 hand-sewn tiny creatures, identical and plentiful, arranged on the ground. It\u2019s like they are about to climb your body en masse. You\u2019re not sure if they will tickle or kill.\u00a0<\/p>

Both spirited yet threatening, these two works speak to the world at large: population increase, suburban crawl, environmental crisis, mass consumption. Inherently, too, they reference typical museum objects:\u00a0Scuttle\u00a0of taxidermy,\u00a0Progeny\u00a0of fauna. But they are not real\u00a0\u2014\u00a0they’re replicas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but, maybe, Toohey enables them to speak more movingly (both physically and symbolically) than objective analysis in contemplating the world\u2019s unfolding narrative.<\/p>

How to Build a Universe<\/em>, to me, almost looks archaeological: the sprawled objects to be personally discovered and interpreted like bones and fragments, rather than sold to audiences as a proud whole. The exhibition posits: it\u2019s futile to reach for an objective collection of an intricate world and, instead, personal responses, self-aware of their subjective nature even if they draw from scientific method, can build our knowledge of the world. Creativity destabilises information.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hannah Toohey, 'Untitled (Progeny),' 2016.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u201cThe modern art museum\u2026 can be described as a struggle between revolution and preservation, participation and protection, experimentation and isolation.\u201d – Christoph Grunenberg, Contemporary Cultures of Display.\u00a0<\/p>

There\u2019s much to say on this topic. A lot has already been said that I am messily parroting. My brain feels foggy and unanalytical after two years of lockdowns. It\u2019s hard to think of global ideas when inside Australia\u2019s isolationist stratagem. But with this imprecise thinking, I can question my way there, I hope.\u00a0<\/p>

The way I see it: the museum is an centralised cultural space with an authorial roof, bound by histories and housing vessels meant to speak to all. Where, or whom, did they come from? Should they talk with such demand? Who is speaking through them? In a single locale, you can\u2019t let a single narrative emerge with the clout of omnipresent perspective. You can\u2019t build a universe through one voice.\u00a0<\/p>

Can art, and the diverse ideas it forms, diverge from this strictness to view the world through duplexity, with no aim toward a conclusion? Does this exhibition suggest a space in-between, where some science is clung to but reimagined?\u00a0How to Build a Universe<\/em>\u00a0probes\u00a0at the museum\u2019s idea of knowing, working to re-rectify science as a baseline for knowledge within museology toward a universal framework much more worth contemplating.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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How to Build a Universe Catalogue – read here\u00a0<\/a><\/p>

Meat Market Stables 8 – 17 July 2021\u00a0<\/p>

Curator | Eliza Jane Coyle\u00a0<\/a><\/p>

Artists | Hannah Toohey, Jacqueline Felstead, Daniella Ruffino, and Chaohui Xie\u00a0<\/p>

How to Build a Universe\u00a0was supported by\u00a0the City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program<\/a><\/p>

Exhibition reflection written by\u00a0Tahney Fosdike\u00a0<\/a><\/p>

Photography by Christian Capurro<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Exhibition essay: How to Build a Universe (Meat Market).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead Tahney's writing<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Build a Universe, to me, almost looks archaeological: the sprawled objects spotlit in the dark to be personally discovered and interpreted like bones and fragments, rather than sold to audiences as a proud whole. The exhibition posits: it\u2019s futile to reach for an objective collection of an intricate world and, instead, personal responses, self-aware of their subjective nature even if they draw from scientific method, can build our knowledge of the world. Creativity destabilises information. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[359,377,11],"tags":[451,450,452,455,448,447,449,453,454],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","category-editorial","category-exhibition","tag-chaohui-xie","tag-daniella-ruffino","tag-eliza-coyle","tag-exhibition-critique","tag-hannah-toohey","tag-how-to-build-a-universe","tag-jacqueline-felstead","tag-meat-market","tag-north-melbourne"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/21-7_Coyle_19.jpg?fit=2500%2C1667&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Pso7-Mw","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":212,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5576,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions\/5576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahneyalexandramay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}