About Context is a body of work that was made during a three month Residency in Melbourne [November 2005- January 2006], to make art work for an exhibition titled Uninhabited Territories, at WestSpace in March 2006. Within this body of work I continued my exploration of issues to do with value in culture through engaging with The Melbourne Museum, a cultural history museum. Inside the Melbourne Museum, in the section titled “Australian History”, there is an authentic kitchen-set from the Australian soap opera Neighbours. Part One of my exploration of aspects of cultural value in Melbourne included a performance in this set, where I symbolically clean the museum display. Photographic documents of this performance were made in to a series of post cards that mimic the publicity postcards issued by the Melbourne museum. These postcards were distributed in Melbourne for the duration of the exhibition. In some ways this could be understood as an exploration of existing cultural values.
The second part of this three part project consisted of my visiting ‘Two Dollar Shops’, and amassing a collection of items that cost Au $2 or less. Through choosing to collect only those items that were similar to objects that I collect for The Portable Hawkers Museum in Johannesburg [most of which are mass produced in factories in Asia], I explored not only issues of cultural difference, but also cultural similitude. Each of the items was photographically catalogued, and the catalogue images [and not the objects] were presented at the Exhibition. The objects were arranged into a portable display unit, and used in a series of public performances in Part Three of the project.
The final part of this project consisted of two components: I did a series of performances in Melbourne, in which I pushed the portable display unit to the Melbourne Museum, and opened my collection to the public at the Melbourne Museum Piazza. [I did a second performance outside the shops where I bought many of the items in the collection]. The display unit was as tall as me, and I placed small wheels on it so that it was cumbersome and difficult to push. In some ways this object could be understood as a kind of Sisyphus rock, for which I take responsibility when engaging with the public during these performances. During the performances I invited members of the public to swap anything of my collection for and item of theirs: they could take something out if they put something in. I catalogued the objects that were exchanged, there by monitoring the changing nature of the collection, as well as a particular instance of cultural exchange. The performances were documented, and the excerpts from these documentations were exhibited at the gallery. Included in this portfolio are stills images from the DVD footage.The second part of this three part project consisted of my visiting ‘Two Dollar Shops’, and amassing a collection of items that cost Au $2 or less. Through choosing to collect only those items that were similar to objects that I collect for The Portable Hawkers Museum in Johannesburg [most of which are mass produced in factories in Asia], I explored not only issues of cultural difference, but also cultural similitude. Each of the items was photographically catalogued, and the catalogue images [and not the objects] were presented at the Exhibition. The objects were arranged into a portable display unit, and used in a series of public performances in Part Three of the project.
Little Treasures, [October 2006] is part homage to Cindy Sherman, and playful extension of the performances enacted in the kitchen set of Neighbours at the Melbourne Museum. This work consists of a series of photographs of me dressed in tongue in cheek housewife garb, taken on the set of Egoli, Place of Gold, the South African soap opera. This series of photographs was exhibited alongside the series of photographs titled "Treasures of the museum", in which I interacted with the used set of the former Australia soap opera Neighbours where it is kept in on display in the Melbourne Museum.