I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Fayen d'Evie12 Video12 Crisis10 Text10 Reproductions9 Improvements8 Listening8 Sound8 Poetry7 Memory7 Photography7 Favourable Conditions7 Performing the Archive6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Fandom5 Sincerely Yours5 Casual-Paradise5 Painting5 to listen, not to preserve5 Installation5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 The Anti-Shock Doctrine4 interview4 Labour3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Artist Walks3 Record3 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Pandemic3 Precarity2 Textile2 read2 music2 Paradise2 Gentrification2 Community2 Essay2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 listen2 Productivity1 Description1 Angna Mein1 watch1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 vampires1 Translation1 augury1 The Region1 choreography1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 Improvisation1 talking1 Surprised face; Heart eyes1 movement1 documentation1 dust1 Sex1 interpretation1 scores1 exhibition1 Politics1 spoken word1
I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Fayen d'Evie12 Video12 Crisis10 Text10 Reproductions9 Improvements8 Listening8 Sound8 Poetry7 Memory7 Photography7 Favourable Conditions7 Performing the Archive6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Fandom5 Sincerely Yours5 Casual-Paradise5 Painting5 to listen, not to preserve5 Installation5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 The Anti-Shock Doctrine4 interview4 Labour3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Artist Walks3 Record3 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Pandemic3 Precarity2 Textile2 read2 music2 Paradise2 Gentrification2 Community2 Essay2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 listen2 Productivity1 Description1 Angna Mein1 watch1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 vampires1 Translation1 augury1 The Region1 choreography1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 Improvisation1 talking1 Surprised face; Heart eyes1 movement1 documentation1 dust1 Sex1 interpretation1 scores1 exhibition1 Politics1 spoken word1
Joel Spring and Victoria Pham
“TERRA: Memory & Soil | collaborator interview”

This video features Joel Spring and Victoria Pham in conversation with West Space curator Sebastian Henry-Jones, on the occasion of their collaborative exhibition TERRA: Memory & Soil.
On show at West Space, 3 September – 16 October, 2022.

—

TERRA: Memory + Soil is a collaboration between Victoria Pham and Joel Spring, whose critical interdisciplinary positions—evolutionary biology, architecture, contemporary art, and composition—bring vastly different insights into notions of the built environment, history and legacies of colonialism.

When we consider gardening, we tend to create a relationship with the natural world through control. Instead of revealing the Earth beneath our feet, we often seek to conceal it, relegating soil to a tool from which our ideal forms grow. This work combines digital art and research into local indigenous knowledge. Instead of a geometrically symmetrical space bordered by hedges and freshly mown grass, Spring and Pham offer a space to listen and experience history through soil, and reconsider what it means to garden.

 

TERRA: Memory + Soil is co-commissioned by West Space, Liquid Architecture and Centre for Projection Art

Joel Spring is a Wiradjuri man raised between Redfern and Alice Springs who works across research, activism, architecture, installation and speculative projects. At present, his work focuses on the contested narratives of Sydney’s and Australia’s urban culture and indigenous history in the face of ongoing colonisation

Victoria Pham is an Australian installation artist, composer, archaeologist and evolutionary biologist. She is a PhD Candidate in Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, holding the Cambridge Trust’s International Scholarship. As a composer she has studied with Carl Vine, Richard Gill, Liza Lim and Thierry Escaich. She is represented by the Australian Music Centre as an Associate Artist.

Video12 interview4 talking1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1