Metonymy

Metonymy is a collaborative project pairing up visual artists and writers, with 2 months to create a unique art work, to be exhibited at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in September.

I have been paired with an amazing poet, Miriam Barr who wrote a great poem for a series of seven navigational stick charts I have made.

All these pathways we carry with us is a series of glass wall sculptures influenced by pacific navigational charts. These beautiful objects were made from sticks, bound together in geometric patterns that depicted sea currents. Instead of representing topography, these charts mapped a journey through ever-changing ocean swells.

Pacific peoples navigated their canoes with sophisticated charts using the seas and skies to guide them, and the knowledge of how to do this was passed down from generation to generation. If the ebb and flow of a journey can be mapped, and knowledge of how to navigate passed down through a family, how can I teach my children to navigate our increasingly complex society?

all these pathways we carry with us

we are scattered
across the oceans
in constellations

wherever we touch
the current changes

we build patterns
to track these vast expanses
a map of ebb & swell

the intersections are
where the islands are

these are the
shifting places
where we can
rest together

we have voyaged here
to be where we are

this is a mantra
for safety i made
for you

a rising star
doesn’t go straight
up from the horizon

sometimes we
find ourselves
in the knotted places

For more details about Metonymy, click here.