Ian Birse & Laura Kavanaugh, East is East (2004)
Rosie Halsmith
Artist: Ian Birse & Laura Kavanaugh Work: East is East(2004) Location: Kellerberrin, Western Australia
“We usually begin a project by going on walks in the area surrounding the presentation space. Walking out toward the rubbish tip on an unusually windy day shortly after our arrival in Kellerberrin we came across a large pile of rusted car parts in a field. The collection was being shaken by the wind, making an orchestra of tapping and scraping metallic sounds. These sounds were isolated and recorded using a contact microphone. We found that the discrete nature of the sounds worked well when played back in the reverberant space of the gallery. After hearing the car-part orchestra we began working with fans as a way to animate objects.
The objects hanging in the store-front windows were found during walks around Kellerberrin. We are interested in the way that the identity of the objects has changed. What once belonged to someone and had a function has been separated from the context in which it was useful and been broken or otherwise altered by exposure to natural or human actions.
The title, East is East, refers to the fact that identities and values are arbitrarily assigned, and that a name which functions as a label may live with a ghost that looks in the opposite direction.” Laura Kavanaugh