December 8, 2022 • 31 mins
Steph catches up with artist Ash Tower during the exhibition Studios 2022 at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE).
They wax poetic about knowledge systems – from library shelves and scientific journals to the honor board at the RSL – which may sound like a dry subject, but Ash’s work reveals a contagious reverence for the humanness that surrounds the growing and organising of knowledge. There’s also talk of architecture, gaming, Baz Luhrmann film trivia, and coffins.
Transcript of this episode (PDF)
Show Notes
- www.ash-tower.com
- Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE)
- Postcards from the Bibliopolis, 2013
- Barr Smith Library, Adelaide
- Studies of Nature, 2017
- Nature (journal)
- RSL: The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for people who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force.
- The Burning of Vision, 2021
- Baroque architecture
- Via Purifico, 2021
- Romeo + Juliet (film), 1996, Baz Luhrmann
- Final Fantasy X (game), 2001, Squaresoft
- … underneath the grove of sycamore that westward rooteth from the city’s side, so early walking did I see your son. (Romeo and Juliet 1.1.119-121)
- 14 Things You Didn’t Know About Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet [cosmo article]
- underneath the grove of sycamore, 2021, ink on paper. 760 x 560mm
- ACE Studio Program
- Studios 2022 exhibition at ACE
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[musical intro]
Steph (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the SALA podcast. My name is Steph
and today I'm catching up withartist Ash Tower in the upstairs
studios at Adelaide ContemporaryExperimental, or ACE for short.
I just want to acknowledge thatwe are on unceded Kaurna Land
and pay my respects to theKaurna People as the Traditional
Owners of this land and thesewaters. Hi, Ash, thank you for
(00:32):
making time to chat today.
Ash (00:33):
Thanks for having me.
Steph (00:35):
I've been reading like lots of bits of biography that
are attached to various projectsthat you've done, and I have no
shortage of questions. But Ireally wanted to start with
something that sort of isn'talways captured in those
official texts, which is (00:46):
what actually drew you to art-making
to begin with?
Ash (00:52):
Yeah, it's an interesting question, I actually can't
remember a time that I wasn'tgoing to become an artist, I
think, or at least that I wasn'tgoing to spend a lot of time
making things, I think there wasalways that inflection as you
start to finish school, whereyou look towards maybe design or
maybe architecture, or thosekind of allied creative
(01:12):
professions where you can maybehave a little bit more of a
stable sort of professionallife. And I sort of tried them
out and work experience in bitsand pieces, and I just didn't
like them. So I think it was itwas sort of, well, I guess I'm
off to arts.
Steph (01:26):
I'm sure a lot of people can relate. And any particular
medium to begin with, or justknew that you had that creative
bent?
Ash (01:36):
I think I drew the most as a kid. And in retrospect, I also
did a lot of a lot of kind ofsculptural stuff and making and
crafting, but I never reallyunderstood those to be kind of
an art practice until I got toart school and sort of, you
know, thought about them asaligned with that kind of
drawing that I did a lot.
Steph (01:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of that learning the validity of
materials as you go "oh, okay,yeah, this is... I'm already
doing it." That's so good. How-this is a tricky one, but I'm
gonna throw it to you- How wouldyou describe your current
practice in layman's terms?
Ash (02:16):
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I think it's kind
of hard to start with materials,because I'm generally pretty, I
suppose promiscuous materially.
Steph (02:25):
You said it, not me.
Ash (02:27):
So it kind of starts with sculpture and installation. But
I also I draw, and I paint and Imake prints. I'm very non
committal, I guess, I suppose tomy material investment. But I
think the one thing that hasfollowed me throughout my
practice, and I've come tophrase it in lots of different
ways over the course of my lifeis I'm always interested in
(02:49):
knowledge. And I'm interested inthe way that knowledge is
connected to culture andconnected to what we know about
the world. And while it's kindof often relegated to, you know,
knowledge and knowing and theact of learning is really
relegated to like this kind ofcold institutional place, I find
that it's actually a really richstory of human intent and human
(03:11):
behavior. And I would say thatthe one thing that's always
that, you know, the commonthread that runs through my
practice is that it always comesfrom a place of research and
enjoying research and enjoyinglearning either new ideas, or
learning new techniques. And soI will often look to places like
libraries and archives andmuseums, as these places that
(03:33):
sort of make knowledge, not juststore it, but are actually
responsible for like sort ofconstructing it and giving it
shape. But more recently, I'vecome to open up that
understanding of knowledge toinclude lots of lesser
institutional practices as well.So things like, you know,
science fiction, orpseudoscience, even or, you
(03:55):
know, spirituality, or all thesedifferent things are different
ways of knowing about the world.And they tell us a lot about our
humanity, I think in how we howwe use them.
Steph (04:06):
That's so interesting to bridge from, yeah, the classic,
yes, museums, libraries, andthen go actually knowledge is in
all of these places as well.That's so cool. And so yeah,
would you say that the mediumoften follows like, the idea
comes first, or the line ofinquiry comes first, and then
the medium kind of makes senseafterwards and falls into place?
Ash (04:26):
Yeah, absolutely the medium, I tend to usually employ
media that have an establishedlanguage or an established
history with the ideas that I'minvestigating. So if I'm
looking, if I'm lookingarchaeologically, then I will
often try and emulate the kindsof materials that I use that the
artifact in the artifacts thatI'm looking at. I focus a lot on
(04:47):
you know, when I'm looking atlibraries and museums, for
example, I'm looking a lot atbookmaking and papermaking. And
the way that word encounterspage and you know those
different things, and so themedium kind of always follows
the idea. Yeah,
Steph (05:01):
I'm just picturing all the clear books put back in the
shelves. I do like that work.Can you quickly just explain
that one for?
Ash (05:08):
Oh, that's an old one. Yeah, that was 'Postcards from
the Bibliopolis', which wasactually art schoolwork away
back in I think maybe 2013. Butit's still a very fun one i That
work was made in response to thebatsman library, which is the
Library at the University ofAdelaide. And I was often I was
going through this library andsort of just wandering the
(05:29):
shelves and thinking about thelibrary as a sight, you know,
frequently or as a piece of as afield. So often when we think
about research, we think about,you know, back the, you know,
back at the institution, whichis home, and then outside, which
is field. And so we do fieldwork. But I was interested in
this space of, you know,something within the
institution, but actuallyconsidering it as as a kind of
(05:50):
wild as a kind of untamed, oruntamed or variable kind of
ecosystem unto itself. And sowhen I was walking through the
library, I sort of encounteredthese, like, handwritten notes
that people would leave in thestacks and things like that. So
the old system, I suppose, asystem that's a little bit
archaic now as you would go intothe library and search on one of
the terminals that was in thecomputer that was in the
(06:11):
library. And that would be, youknow, like a little tray of
scrap paper and a pencil thatyou would, you know, note what
you needed, and then take itinto the states to find and
people would often leave thosebits and pieces in there. And I
became interested in thosethings as quite resounding like
artifacts of intent in their ownright. And they wouldn't just
be, you know, call signs forbooks, either there would be
like shopping lists or lettersor, and that would be on the
(06:34):
letterheads of, you know,pharmacies, and you know, like
lawyers and like, all thesereally rich bits of information
to find in this vast network ofinformation. And so I gradually
started collecting them andnoting where I found them, and
then I would resin embed theminto like a larger book sized
block and working with thelibrary, re embed those books,
(06:54):
that resin books back into thelibrary field. Yeah. That's so
cool. Yeah. And the library wasreally wonderful as well about,
you know, giving themradiofrequency tags, so they
worked like library books, and,you know, they kind of circled
through the system as Not ForLoan books, and you know, I got
most of them back, and then someof them are still out there in
the world.
Steph (07:15):
That's so cool. i Yes, I do get the impression that
you're very comfortable in alibrary setting, comes through
loud and clear. I did have aquestion specifically pertaining
to knowledge systems. But Ithink you have, yeah, already
touched on this being a sort of,you know, you've got that
interest in research and you howyou are very much an academic,
(07:37):
you've got your PhD, and youteach and lecture and all sorts
of things. Do you have? I gotthat, right.
Ash (07:44):
Yeah. So I think I got my PhD at the end of 2018, at the
start of 2019. And somewhatrelated to the practice, it was
on the relationship between artsand sciences, and how they, and
how artists and scientists worktogether in the laboratory. And
as much as that documents sortof looked in a very different
direction, I think, from mypractice, now, the one thing it
(08:05):
did, or the one great gift itgave me was that it really
unseated Western Imperialscience as the predominant way
of knowing about the world.Learning what I did over my PhD
was really a process of learningthe ways in which knowledge is
constructed. And so some ofthose, like nascent or really
latent ideas that were in mypractice, prior to my PhD, you
know, I was looking a lot atsystems and the ways we organize
knowledge, you know, the PhDsort of blew open the doors to
(08:28):
that and made me realize thatthere isn't only one way or one
correct way of knowing about theworld. And that, you know,
really caused the crisis in mypractice, almost of realizing
this thing that I was likewedded to is like, actually not,
not so monumental and monolithicas it as it makes itself out to
be. Wow, that's huge. Yeah, Ithink there are, sometimes I
(08:50):
think PhDs, you know, contributea lot to knowledge and a lot to
the world. And other times, Ithink they just really serve to
completely undermine the realityof the person that gets them.
Mine was the second one.
(09:10):
[musical interlude]
Steph (09:16):
But I think he do quite nicely make room for
acknowledging -I don't know whatthe right term is- but I'm
referring to works thatmemorialized, like the
scientific papers that wererejected -is that the right
word?- and still acknowledgingthat they existed. And can you
speak to that body of work?
Ash (09:35):
Yeah, yeah. So that was a work called 'Studies of nature'.
I think that was maybe 2017. AndI became really interested in I
became interested, I was, youknow, just entering academia
just starting to put papers upand just starting to have them
knocked back and becoming reallyinterested in the ways that you
know, all of this labor waspoured into these, you know,
(09:56):
really from the outside quitedry written documents, but once
you become familiar with andthey can actually be quite rich
things. And so I took, you know,I did like a survey of three or
four years of the Journal ofnature, which is the kind of
massive umbrella name for agroup of scientific journals.
And I looked at all the papersthat have been retracted from
the Journal of nature. Soinstead of the ones that would
(10:17):
be rejected, which is probablyin in the scope of 1000s, across
papers that were published, andwere then taken down, right, as
a, and sometimes I think peopleattribute a retraction of the
paper has been quite a sinisterthing, like it's been falsified,
or there's something fraudulentin it. But a lot of the times,
it's kind of a the honestmistake, or the fact that it
(10:40):
hasn't been able to bereproduced by the rest of the
scientific community. But Ibecame interested in these
papers that sort of went up andcame down as a kind of science
fiction in their own way, likethey still describe the world,
not necessarily in a way thatscience lacks, but they are
still artifacts of labor andlove. And if anything, the fact
that there are so many of themboils down to the scientific
(11:00):
communities kind of greatefforts to sort of keep a high
standard of kind of scientificactivity. But one of the things
that happens when you retract apaper is that the publisher
issues a statement as to whyit's been retracted. And
sometimes those are quitesalacious things. And other
times, they're quite earnestthings of this, you know, this
figure was accidentally or weaccidentally use a version of
(11:24):
this figure that had been colorcorrected, which is, you know,
as much as that seems like areally insignificant thing, it
does invalidate the paper in thein the eyes of the journal. And
so I took the citations for allthese papers and listed them on
an on a board that you might seeassociated with, you know,
sporting veterans or war heroes,or all those sorts of people and
(11:46):
just as a way of memorializingthem and giving them some sort
of
Steph (11:50):
they had a space to occupy I guess, after...
Ash (11:53):
definitely Yeah, and I think that, you know, the
scientific community, you know,it has a, it has a mandate to
uphold those really highstandards. But I think that the
wonderful thing about art isthat it has the free potential
to acknowledge those things,even though they are sort of
cast aside by the scientificcommunity.
Steph (12:12):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's quite a strong work in
you know, that the board isreally commanding, you know,
quite tall. And yeah, perfectlyhas that... is that gold
lettering?
Ash (12:26):
Yeah,
Steph (12:26):
yeah yep, the whole 'down to a tee'.
Ash (12:29):
Yeah, I've become like I think one of the things that has
started to emerge over the lastfew years is my like, absolute
fascination with this kind ofcurious Australian RSL clubs
that I mean, we'll probably getto talking about architecture
eventually because that's whereit will make discussion seem to
end up but the ways in which youknow, Australia is just I spent
a lot of time in RSL clubs as akid growing up in original
(12:50):
Western Australia. And I wasalways so fascinated by you
know, like the kind of unadornedcinderblock, RSL Club with these
beautiful elaborate crafted on aboards and sort of on a rolls
that sort of hung in the space.And I was so interested in the
the absolute kind of jarringcontrast of those visual
(13:13):
languages,
Steph (13:14):
it can be quite stark.
Ash (13:15):
I think the culmination of my career will truly be making
an exhibition for an RSL club.
Steph (13:20):
you heard it here first folks.
Unknown (13:32):
[musical interlude]
Steph (13:34):
I will take you up on asking you about architecture. I
think we all knew it was gonnago there. You also teach
architecture, but it comesthrough on your work heaps.
Imagine you're just superpassionate about it. Is that
fair to say?
Ash (13:51):
It's a really funny story. I think the teaching led to it
finding its way in my practice.
Steph (13:55):
Oh, not the other way around!
Ash (13:57):
Yeah. So when I started my PhD, I took on a little bit of
work, just tutoring at theuniversity. And they didn't need
art theory tutors, they actuallyneeded architectural history
tutors. And you know, the storyof architecture runs quite
parallel to the history of art.So with a bit of extra studying
that great to take it on. AndI've been teaching or tutoring
(14:19):
rather architecture for aboutsix years now. And I think it's
just, it's a really convenientor a really useful parallel
language to art history. Theyoften follow quite similar
movements in quite similarthemes. But the nature of
architecture as being somewhatutilitarian, but also maybe
sometimes a little bit moresurvivable than art in the kind
of historical record. Makes it areally useful kind of parallel
(14:44):
current to draw from. And soyeah, it's a I often describe
architecture within my practiceas a kind of vehicle for
meaning. And what I mean by thatis that it's just a good way of
giving form to a certain set ofideas that run underneath the
practice of Western art.picture. And so yeah, the more I
sort of, you know, taught thisand learned more about it and
(15:05):
studied up on it, I started torealize how much potential it
had in a creative practice.
Steph (15:10):
So cool. I just assumed it would have been the other way
around. There you go. And then Ithink we see, drawing on some
more recent work that you'vedone. I know I've cast back to
some older stuff. But you had ashow recently at Flooding Goose
called 'The Burning of Vision',which I think it's fair to say,
brings some of thatarchitectural language, although
(15:33):
also tabletop gaming. Do youwant to talk about that show a
little bit?
Ash (15:36):
Yeah. So I think this is maybe one of the reasons I think
I sort of partition my practiceinto projects is because it may
be enables me to stretch out alittle bit further than I
otherwise would than if I hadone kind of clarified statement
for all of my work. The Burningof Vision was a really fun,
really frightening, reallyinteresting show, that consisted
(15:59):
of a lot of cardboard sculpture.And it was it was deliberately
riffing on baroque architecture,particularly, or specifically,
which is, you know, the sort ofthe architecture or technique
that arises from the Catholicsin, you know, Italy in the, for
(16:20):
the purposes of a CounterReformation, to contest this
schism that happens in thechurch, at that particular
period in history. And so it'spure theatrics, it's all about
bums on seats, it is creating acelestial grand spectacle that
is so revelatory to people whosee it that they can't help but
believe that the Catholic way ofknowing about the world is the
(16:40):
only way of knowing about theworld. And so while it is the
utricle, it's also extremelypersuasive. But it's also
extremely high art, you know,and it appeals to the, the
metaphysical, the celestial likeall these issues of beyond the
world beyond life, these massiveideas. And I sort of became
interested in what might happenif it were crammed into this
(17:02):
sort of crude visual language oftabletop gaming and terrain
building. And I think like, mostpeople, my age with my
upbringing, sort of went througha lack of bit of a tabletop
gaming phase, where you wouldbuild terrain and model foam and
cardboard and you know, flockwith little
Steph (17:19):
paint figurines?
Ash (17:20):
exactly, yeah. And I was sort of interested in how this
like really kind of high artarchitectural language could be
rendered in these really crudematerials. And so it came from a
lot of there were a lot of ideasthat the show picked up on the
way but that was the originalpremise of it. And so yeah, the
exhibition culminated in quite alarge cardboard installation of
(17:41):
all of these different I callthem tombstones, I think,
because they have an obviousrelationship to tombstones being
this kind of large, flat facedthing was sort of pointed top,
but also because I wasinterested in the role of, they
sort of seemed to want text onthem, like they, because they,
they were these, you know,Tombstone things that were
expanded to the scale of honorboards. And so they seem to want
(18:04):
this text on them. But also,they're connected back to this
kind of Italian Roman traditionof writing on tablets. And
that's not that's like a quite astoried thing in western
archaeology. And so theresulting work was really
supposed to feel quiteoverwhelming in the way that a
Baroque cathedral might but alsoquite flimsy in the way that a
(18:27):
teenager's tabletop gamingefforts had resulted in.
Steph (18:31):
What a great two things to try and marry.
Unknown (18:36):
[musical interlude]
Steph (18:47):
While we're picking apart works that have caught my eye, I
really have to ask about thework is it 'Via Purifico'?
Ash (18:55):
Via Purifico.
Steph (18:56):
Terrific. Fantastic. I have to ask what does Baz
Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo andJuliet have to do with
Squaresoft's 2001 video game,Final Fantasy?
Ash (19:11):
In short, nothing.
Steph (19:13):
Excellent!
Ash (19:13):
But I think that that was the purpose of the marriage.
Yeah. Not unlike the sort ofquite jarring influences that
were behind the burning ofvision. I was interested in.
Well, first of all, I just havea deep and abiding love for that
film. The '96 Romeo and Juliet
Steph (19:29):
Who doesn't; [it's] pretty iconic
Ash (19:31):
with Clare Danes and Leo DiCaprio. And originally, the
show was just going to be aboutthat film.
Steph (19:38):
Oh Okay.
Ash (19:40):
In particular, it was going to be about the set of that film
that has a particular storybehind it. So there's a scene in
the film that set on this kindof miami beach style scene. And
there's like a ruined stage setcalled the Sycamore Grove
Theatre, which is a reference tothe original Shakespearean text
and the character of Mercutio'sdeath scene plays out on that
(20:01):
stage is and it's Luhrmannmaking a filmic reference to the
original theatrical play ofRomeo and Juliet. But an
interesting piece of triviaabout the movie is that, you
know, after they'd recordedMercutio's death scene, you know
where he dies, and then curses,you know, 'a plague on both your
houses', and then a storm rollsin in the film and destroys the
beach and everyone runs away.The filming location in Mexico
(20:25):
City was actually hit by atyphoon after they filmed, and
destroyed that set.
Steph (20:29):
Oh, wow.
Ash (20:29):
And so there was a kind of curious art-meets-life thing
that happened where that stormsort of punches through the
different fictive layers of thefilm. And so the whole show
began with the drawing that's inthat show, which is 'underneath
the grove of sycamore', which isan attempt to forensically
reconstruct the stage set, giventhat there are no drawings
(20:49):
available. And so I sort of hadto work with a few surviving,
like the scenes in the film, andthen a few surviving bits of
Super Eight footage from theproduction material to
reconstruct this thing in adrawn architectural diagrammatic
form. And from there, I sort ofwas thinking a lot about ruins
and a lot about the ways thatruins have been used in the
(21:13):
history of Western architecture.And, you know, particularly in
something like the neoclassicaltradition, ruins are always a
call back to a previous time,ruins are used architecturally
to evoke a lost golden age orsome kind of great knowledge
that has been... that has beenlost or subsumed by, you know,
the ebb and flow of time. Andthat drew me to another
(21:37):
formative influence, I guess, inmy childhood, which was this
video game called Final Fantasy,which I think not many people
know about. It's a category ofgames called Japanese role
playing games, which is, youknow, just a particular style of
video game that comes out ofJapan. And it was translated to
the West in 2001. And it followsa kind of a similar kind of
(21:59):
Hero's Journey arc that Romeoand Juliet does. There's a you
know, a lead romance as well.But it also takes place in a
world that seems to be cycliclydestroyed every 10 years. And so
everyone lives in the ruins of aprecursor civilization. And so I
sort of became interested in theway that the ruin connects the
two texts. But also, there's aparticular... there's a pivotal
(22:22):
scene that plays out in thevideo game, not unlike the one
that occurs in Romeo and Juliet,where the two characters stare
out over a sunken arch that'sslightly off shore. And it looks
quite similar to the arch or tothe sunken theater in Romeo and
Juliet. And so that quite flimsyconnection became the basis for
the entire show, which isessentially imagining a kind of
(22:45):
speculative world in which thesetwo fictional works actually
take place in the same universe.
Steph (22:50):
Wow, that's so cool.
Ash (22:52):
The more and more I sort of make, the more I realized that
I, I really enjoy placing a lotof weight on this quite flimsy
connection.
Steph (23:00):
Yeah.
Ash (23:01):
And then the work of the practice is to try and expand
them out into a kind of richlogic of their own.
Steph (23:06):
Yeah, well, I suppose once you start looking, you're
like, 'Oh, I'm finding more waysI can connect this'.
Ash (23:12):
Yeah, absolutely. And so yeah, and so the work was almost
about trying to build anevidence base for this insane
theory. And I was also thinkinga lot about how that fits into
these previous, you know, themesof knowledge systems and things.
Steph (23:27):
Yeah, it does tie back.
Ash (23:28):
Yeah, it presents a it presents a logic of its own, it
presents a world of its own. AndI think that's what is draws me
to this this kind of speculativeangle, which has been emerging
recently. Just because they youknow, just because it's
speculative. It's still presentsa logic about the world, which
is not too dissimilar from theway that we report the world
through science or throughfiction.
Steph (23:48):
Yeah. Amazing.
Unknown (24:03):
[musical interlude]
Steph (24:11):
Now, coming to more of the present; I think we've been
quite chronological. One of yourmost recent things that you've
been doing is you've had studiospace at Adelaide Contemporary
Experimental for is it most of2022? Tell us how that's been.
Ash (24:29):
It's been great. I haven't had designated studio space
since I left art school, beenreally wonderful to get back and
sort of claim a space for makingagain, because, you know,
everything has just occurred onthe kitchen table and you know,
in just absolutely kind offrantic mess of life. And it's
really nice to have a designatedspace and really, also important
(24:50):
to have time to think about mywork in larger timescales as
well. Like there's a there's adesignated place for the
practice and it doesn't have towork with the cycles of home and
the cycles of funding and thecycles of semesters and all
those sorts of things. So it'sbeen a really significant
opportunity as well to work withMegan Robson, who's the curator
at the MCA, but who has beenworking with ACE this year to
(25:11):
sort of mentor myself and theother studio artists towards
this kind of studios 2022exhibition, which I suppose is
the combination of everyone'swork this year and the things
we've been working towards.
Steph (25:22):
And how many of you were there in the studios this year?
Ash (25:25):
There are five of us. So aside from me, there is also
Chelsea Farquhar, Dani Reynolds,Shaye Dương and Cecilia Tizard.
And it's been really wonderfulto get to know them as well and
bounce ideas back and forth. Ithink we're all really fast
friends now, which is just anawesome thing to have coming
from a home studio and where youjust work silently into the
(25:46):
night. It can get a lotsometimes.
Steph (25:51):
Oh, cool. And so yes, Studios 2022 is the show that
has culminated, so everyone'sgot work represented in there.
Is that all recent, like workthat has been built over this
last 12 months?
Ash (26:03):
Yeah. So fortunately, ACE was in a position to be able to
commission new work for the showthat's downstairs this time. So
the the offerings that are inthe studio show are all new work
that have all been made thisyear in response to the
different investigations thatpeople have been undertaking.
That's great.
Steph (26:19):
And while we're talking about it, what are the dates for
the exhibition?
Ash (26:24):
It runs from the 12th of November to the 17th of
December, in 2022 yes. Shout outto those of you listening from
2023. We made we made iteverybody.
Steph (26:35):
this is a ruin of the year before. Excellent. And can
you talk about the work thatyou've got in the show?
Ash (26:42):
Yeah. So the work that is in the show downstairs is kind
of the first iteration of anidea that sort of came to me
when I was drawing, spending alot of time drawing the theater
and the last work in the lastbody of work. I've been really
interested in a long timecompanion, I think in my
(27:02):
academic life has been thehistory of technology and
looking at the way thattechnology tells us a lot about
the cultures and histories fromwhich it arises. And I'm not
just talking about technology interms of iPhones and things, but
technology in terms of you know,stone tools like shipping, like
you know, all those kinds ofexpanded built things that
enable us to sort of control ourenvironment and work in the
(27:23):
world. And I've got a longstanding interest in archaeology
as well. But I was thinking alot about specifically the
materials of lead and glass andhow they have a really long
archaeological legacy, like theyexist quite far back in the
historical record, but also theextremely relevant materials
(27:44):
today for a number of things.And one of the things that was
kind of emerging, maybe this wasjust because of the stuff that I
was watching when I was makingit watching listening to when I
was making the previousexhibition, it was it was a lot
about nuclear technology andnuclear weapons. And, you know,
(28:04):
following this kind of premiseof how do I draw, how do I use
my practice to draw togetherthese two kind of quite distinct
aspects of history and culture,I decided to sort of look at the
materials of lead and glass anduse them as a way of connecting
our contemporary understandingof nuclear technology. And what
that tells us about modernhistory and modern life, with
(28:26):
the archaeological uses of leadand glass and how that tells us
about historical cultures andtimes. And so one of the
historical uses of lead has beenas a writing implement, you
know, it's quite a soft, supplemetal that supports the written
language quite well. But it'salso been used historically to
Lion coffins. And the reasonbeing is because it's so soft
(28:48):
and supple, it enables it tocreate a seal, essentially, sort
of preserving the remains ofpeople who are interred inside
it. It's a historical tradition.It goes back actually, I don't
even know how far it goes back.But it lives on today in the way
that actually the British royalfamily is still buried in
leadline. coffins. So if youlook at the footage of Diana's
(29:09):
funeral, for example, you'd say10 pallbearers straining under
the weight of what's actually aquarter time coffin. But the the
other use for leadline coffinsis in nuclear accidents. Because
the Yeah, because the victims ofnuclear accidents, their bodies
(29:29):
are still radioactive. And so byburying them in leadline coffins
you're essentially containingthat radiation.
Steph (29:34):
This is such dark information.
Ash (29:38):
And I think that's been a real challenge of this work is
to look at it from you know,the, the inevitability of
looking at it from a purelyhistorical perspective, because
that's where I depart from butthen it draws on you know, it
touches life so much that thatactually becomes quite sinister.
And I think a bit of that shinesthrough in the in the artifacts
Downstairs there hopefully it'snot too overwhelming
Steph (30:00):
Amazing. I definitely have to go back and sit with
that work again. Oh my goodness.
Ash (30:07):
But if my work becomes too overwhelming just look over at
Chelsea's acrobats and it'll allbe okay.
Steph (30:13):
There's a nice balance in that space for sure.
Ash (30:15):
Yes.
Steph (30:17):
Amazing. And where can people follow along with your
next projects and what you're upto?
Ash (30:22):
Oh, well, I'm on Instagram, you can follow me at @Ash.Tower.
And that's where people can stayin touch with all this sort of
zany things I'm getting up toand it's also got links to
everything else that I do.
Steph (30:33):
Excellent. Well, thank you. Thanks for letting us pick
your brain. And yeah, we'll seewhat you do next.
Ash (30:38):
Thank you.
[musical intro]
Steph (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the SALA podcast. My name is Steph
and today I'm catching up withartist Ash Tower in the upstairs
studios at Adelaide ContemporaryExperimental, or ACE for short.
I just want to acknowledge thatwe are on unceded Kaurna Land
and pay my respects to theKaurna People as the Traditional
Owners of this land and thesewaters. Hi, Ash, thank you for
(00:32):
making time to chat today.
Ash (00:33):
Thanks for having me.
Steph (00:35):
I've been reading like lots of bits of biography that
are attached to various projectsthat you've done, and I have no
shortage of questions. But Ireally wanted to start with
something that sort of isn'talways captured in those
official texts, which is (00:46):
what actually drew you to art-making
to begin with?
Ash (00:52):
Yeah, it's an interesting question, I actually can't
remember a time that I wasn'tgoing to become an artist, I
think, or at least that I wasn'tgoing to spend a lot of time
making things, I think there wasalways that inflection as you
start to finish school, whereyou look towards maybe design or
maybe architecture, or thosekind of allied creative
(01:12):
professions where you can maybehave a little bit more of a
stable sort of professionallife. And I sort of tried them
out and work experience in bitsand pieces, and I just didn't
like them. So I think it was itwas sort of, well, I guess I'm
off to arts.
Steph (01:26):
I'm sure a lot of people can relate. And any particular
medium to begin with, or justknew that you had that creative
bent?
Ash (01:36):
I think I drew the most as a kid. And in retrospect, I also
did a lot of a lot of kind ofsculptural stuff and making and
crafting, but I never reallyunderstood those to be kind of
an art practice until I got toart school and sort of, you
know, thought about them asaligned with that kind of
drawing that I did a lot.
Steph (01:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of that learning the validity of
materials as you go "oh, okay,yeah, this is... I'm already
doing it." That's so good. How-this is a tricky one, but I'm
gonna throw it to you- How wouldyou describe your current
practice in layman's terms?
Ash (02:16):
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I think it's kind
of hard to start with materials,because I'm generally pretty, I
suppose promiscuous materially.
Steph (02:25):
You said it, not me.
Ash (02:27):
So it kind of starts with sculpture and installation. But
I also I draw, and I paint and Imake prints. I'm very non
committal, I guess, I suppose tomy material investment. But I
think the one thing that hasfollowed me throughout my
practice, and I've come tophrase it in lots of different
ways over the course of my lifeis I'm always interested in
(02:49):
knowledge. And I'm interested inthe way that knowledge is
connected to culture andconnected to what we know about
the world. And while it's kindof often relegated to, you know,
knowledge and knowing and theact of learning is really
relegated to like this kind ofcold institutional place, I find
that it's actually a really richstory of human intent and human
(03:11):
behavior. And I would say thatthe one thing that's always
that, you know, the commonthread that runs through my
practice is that it always comesfrom a place of research and
enjoying research and enjoyinglearning either new ideas, or
learning new techniques. And soI will often look to places like
libraries and archives andmuseums, as these places that
(03:33):
sort of make knowledge, not juststore it, but are actually
responsible for like sort ofconstructing it and giving it
shape. But more recently, I'vecome to open up that
understanding of knowledge toinclude lots of lesser
institutional practices as well.So things like, you know,
science fiction, orpseudoscience, even or, you
(03:55):
know, spirituality, or all thesedifferent things are different
ways of knowing about the world.And they tell us a lot about our
humanity, I think in how we howwe use them.
Steph (04:06):
That's so interesting to bridge from, yeah, the classic,
yes, museums, libraries, andthen go actually knowledge is in
all of these places as well.That's so cool. And so yeah,
would you say that the mediumoften follows like, the idea
comes first, or the line ofinquiry comes first, and then
the medium kind of makes senseafterwards and falls into place?
Ash (04:26):
Yeah, absolutely the medium, I tend to usually employ
media that have an establishedlanguage or an established
history with the ideas that I'minvestigating. So if I'm
looking, if I'm lookingarchaeologically, then I will
often try and emulate the kindsof materials that I use that the
artifact in the artifacts thatI'm looking at. I focus a lot on
(04:47):
you know, when I'm looking atlibraries and museums, for
example, I'm looking a lot atbookmaking and papermaking. And
the way that word encounterspage and you know those
different things, and so themedium kind of always follows
the idea. Yeah,
Steph (05:01):
I'm just picturing all the clear books put back in the
shelves. I do like that work.Can you quickly just explain
that one for?
Ash (05:08):
Oh, that's an old one. Yeah, that was 'Postcards from
the Bibliopolis', which wasactually art schoolwork away
back in I think maybe 2013. Butit's still a very fun one i That
work was made in response to thebatsman library, which is the
Library at the University ofAdelaide. And I was often I was
going through this library andsort of just wandering the
(05:29):
shelves and thinking about thelibrary as a sight, you know,
frequently or as a piece of as afield. So often when we think
about research, we think about,you know, back the, you know,
back at the institution, whichis home, and then outside, which
is field. And so we do fieldwork. But I was interested in
this space of, you know,something within the
institution, but actuallyconsidering it as as a kind of
(05:50):
wild as a kind of untamed, oruntamed or variable kind of
ecosystem unto itself. And sowhen I was walking through the
library, I sort of encounteredthese, like, handwritten notes
that people would leave in thestacks and things like that. So
the old system, I suppose, asystem that's a little bit
archaic now as you would go intothe library and search on one of
the terminals that was in thecomputer that was in the
(06:11):
library. And that would be, youknow, like a little tray of
scrap paper and a pencil thatyou would, you know, note what
you needed, and then take itinto the states to find and
people would often leave thosebits and pieces in there. And I
became interested in thosethings as quite resounding like
artifacts of intent in their ownright. And they wouldn't just
be, you know, call signs forbooks, either there would be
like shopping lists or lettersor, and that would be on the
(06:34):
letterheads of, you know,pharmacies, and you know, like
lawyers and like, all thesereally rich bits of information
to find in this vast network ofinformation. And so I gradually
started collecting them andnoting where I found them, and
then I would resin embed theminto like a larger book sized
block and working with thelibrary, re embed those books,
(06:54):
that resin books back into thelibrary field. Yeah. That's so
cool. Yeah. And the library wasreally wonderful as well about,
you know, giving themradiofrequency tags, so they
worked like library books, and,you know, they kind of circled
through the system as Not ForLoan books, and you know, I got
most of them back, and then someof them are still out there in
the world.
Steph (07:15):
That's so cool. i Yes, I do get the impression that
you're very comfortable in alibrary setting, comes through
loud and clear. I did have aquestion specifically pertaining
to knowledge systems. But Ithink you have, yeah, already
touched on this being a sort of,you know, you've got that
interest in research and you howyou are very much an academic,
(07:37):
you've got your PhD, and youteach and lecture and all sorts
of things. Do you have? I gotthat, right.
Ash (07:44):
Yeah. So I think I got my PhD at the end of 2018, at the
start of 2019. And somewhatrelated to the practice, it was
on the relationship between artsand sciences, and how they, and
how artists and scientists worktogether in the laboratory. And
as much as that documents sortof looked in a very different
direction, I think, from mypractice, now, the one thing it
(08:05):
did, or the one great gift itgave me was that it really
unseated Western Imperialscience as the predominant way
of knowing about the world.Learning what I did over my PhD
was really a process of learningthe ways in which knowledge is
constructed. And so some ofthose, like nascent or really
latent ideas that were in mypractice, prior to my PhD, you
know, I was looking a lot atsystems and the ways we organize
knowledge, you know, the PhDsort of blew open the doors to
(08:28):
that and made me realize thatthere isn't only one way or one
correct way of knowing about theworld. And that, you know,
really caused the crisis in mypractice, almost of realizing
this thing that I was likewedded to is like, actually not,
not so monumental and monolithicas it as it makes itself out to
be. Wow, that's huge. Yeah, Ithink there are, sometimes I
(08:50):
think PhDs, you know, contributea lot to knowledge and a lot to
the world. And other times, Ithink they just really serve to
completely undermine the realityof the person that gets them.
Mine was the second one.
(09:10):
[musical interlude]
Steph (09:16):
But I think he do quite nicely make room for
acknowledging -I don't know whatthe right term is- but I'm
referring to works thatmemorialized, like the
scientific papers that wererejected -is that the right
word?- and still acknowledgingthat they existed. And can you
speak to that body of work?
Ash (09:35):
Yeah, yeah. So that was a work called 'Studies of nature'.
I think that was maybe 2017. AndI became really interested in I
became interested, I was, youknow, just entering academia
just starting to put papers upand just starting to have them
knocked back and becoming reallyinterested in the ways that you
know, all of this labor waspoured into these, you know,
(09:56):
really from the outside quitedry written documents, but once
you become familiar with andthey can actually be quite rich
things. And so I took, you know,I did like a survey of three or
four years of the Journal ofnature, which is the kind of
massive umbrella name for agroup of scientific journals.
And I looked at all the papersthat have been retracted from
the Journal of nature. Soinstead of the ones that would
(10:17):
be rejected, which is probablyin in the scope of 1000s, across
papers that were published, andwere then taken down, right, as
a, and sometimes I think peopleattribute a retraction of the
paper has been quite a sinisterthing, like it's been falsified,
or there's something fraudulentin it. But a lot of the times,
it's kind of a the honestmistake, or the fact that it
(10:40):
hasn't been able to bereproduced by the rest of the
scientific community. But Ibecame interested in these
papers that sort of went up andcame down as a kind of science
fiction in their own way, likethey still describe the world,
not necessarily in a way thatscience lacks, but they are
still artifacts of labor andlove. And if anything, the fact
that there are so many of themboils down to the scientific
(11:00):
communities kind of greatefforts to sort of keep a high
standard of kind of scientificactivity. But one of the things
that happens when you retract apaper is that the publisher
issues a statement as to whyit's been retracted. And
sometimes those are quitesalacious things. And other
times, they're quite earnestthings of this, you know, this
figure was accidentally or weaccidentally use a version of
(11:24):
this figure that had been colorcorrected, which is, you know,
as much as that seems like areally insignificant thing, it
does invalidate the paper in thein the eyes of the journal. And
so I took the citations for allthese papers and listed them on
an on a board that you might seeassociated with, you know,
sporting veterans or war heroes,or all those sorts of people and
(11:46):
just as a way of memorializingthem and giving them some sort
of
Steph (11:50):
they had a space to occupy I guess, after...
Ash (11:53):
definitely Yeah, and I think that, you know, the
scientific community, you know,it has a, it has a mandate to
uphold those really highstandards. But I think that the
wonderful thing about art isthat it has the free potential
to acknowledge those things,even though they are sort of
cast aside by the scientificcommunity.
Steph (12:12):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's quite a strong work in
you know, that the board isreally commanding, you know,
quite tall. And yeah, perfectlyhas that... is that gold
lettering?
Ash (12:26):
Yeah,
Steph (12:26):
yeah yep, the whole 'down to a tee'.
Ash (12:29):
Yeah, I've become like I think one of the things that has
started to emerge over the lastfew years is my like, absolute
fascination with this kind ofcurious Australian RSL clubs
that I mean, we'll probably getto talking about architecture
eventually because that's whereit will make discussion seem to
end up but the ways in which youknow, Australia is just I spent
a lot of time in RSL clubs as akid growing up in original
(12:50):
Western Australia. And I wasalways so fascinated by you
know, like the kind of unadornedcinderblock, RSL Club with these
beautiful elaborate crafted on aboards and sort of on a rolls
that sort of hung in the space.And I was so interested in the
the absolute kind of jarringcontrast of those visual
(13:13):
languages,
Steph (13:14):
it can be quite stark.
Ash (13:15):
I think the culmination of my career will truly be making
an exhibition for an RSL club.
Steph (13:20):
you heard it here first folks.
Unknown (13:32):
[musical interlude]
Steph (13:34):
I will take you up on asking you about architecture. I
think we all knew it was gonnago there. You also teach
architecture, but it comesthrough on your work heaps.
Imagine you're just superpassionate about it. Is that
fair to say?
Ash (13:51):
It's a really funny story. I think the teaching led to it
finding its way in my practice.
Steph (13:55):
Oh, not the other way around!
Ash (13:57):
Yeah. So when I started my PhD, I took on a little bit of
work, just tutoring at theuniversity. And they didn't need
art theory tutors, they actuallyneeded architectural history
tutors. And you know, the storyof architecture runs quite
parallel to the history of art.So with a bit of extra studying
that great to take it on. AndI've been teaching or tutoring
(14:19):
rather architecture for aboutsix years now. And I think it's
just, it's a really convenientor a really useful parallel
language to art history. Theyoften follow quite similar
movements in quite similarthemes. But the nature of
architecture as being somewhatutilitarian, but also maybe
sometimes a little bit moresurvivable than art in the kind
of historical record. Makes it areally useful kind of parallel
(14:44):
current to draw from. And soyeah, it's a I often describe
architecture within my practiceas a kind of vehicle for
meaning. And what I mean by thatis that it's just a good way of
giving form to a certain set ofideas that run underneath the
practice of Western art.picture. And so yeah, the more I
sort of, you know, taught thisand learned more about it and
(15:05):
studied up on it, I started torealize how much potential it
had in a creative practice.
Steph (15:10):
So cool. I just assumed it would have been the other way
around. There you go. And then Ithink we see, drawing on some
more recent work that you'vedone. I know I've cast back to
some older stuff. But you had ashow recently at Flooding Goose
called 'The Burning of Vision',which I think it's fair to say,
brings some of thatarchitectural language, although
(15:33):
also tabletop gaming. Do youwant to talk about that show a
little bit?
Ash (15:36):
Yeah. So I think this is maybe one of the reasons I think
I sort of partition my practiceinto projects is because it may
be enables me to stretch out alittle bit further than I
otherwise would than if I hadone kind of clarified statement
for all of my work. The Burningof Vision was a really fun,
really frightening, reallyinteresting show, that consisted
(15:59):
of a lot of cardboard sculpture.And it was it was deliberately
riffing on baroque architecture,particularly, or specifically,
which is, you know, the sort ofthe architecture or technique
that arises from the Catholicsin, you know, Italy in the, for
(16:20):
the purposes of a CounterReformation, to contest this
schism that happens in thechurch, at that particular
period in history. And so it'spure theatrics, it's all about
bums on seats, it is creating acelestial grand spectacle that
is so revelatory to people whosee it that they can't help but
believe that the Catholic way ofknowing about the world is the
(16:40):
only way of knowing about theworld. And so while it is the
utricle, it's also extremelypersuasive. But it's also
extremely high art, you know,and it appeals to the, the
metaphysical, the celestial likeall these issues of beyond the
world beyond life, these massiveideas. And I sort of became
interested in what might happenif it were crammed into this
(17:02):
sort of crude visual language oftabletop gaming and terrain
building. And I think like, mostpeople, my age with my
upbringing, sort of went througha lack of bit of a tabletop
gaming phase, where you wouldbuild terrain and model foam and
cardboard and you know, flockwith little
Steph (17:19):
paint figurines?
Ash (17:20):
exactly, yeah. And I was sort of interested in how this
like really kind of high artarchitectural language could be
rendered in these really crudematerials. And so it came from a
lot of there were a lot of ideasthat the show picked up on the
way but that was the originalpremise of it. And so yeah, the
exhibition culminated in quite alarge cardboard installation of
(17:41):
all of these different I callthem tombstones, I think,
because they have an obviousrelationship to tombstones being
this kind of large, flat facedthing was sort of pointed top,
but also because I wasinterested in the role of, they
sort of seemed to want text onthem, like they, because they,
they were these, you know,Tombstone things that were
expanded to the scale of honorboards. And so they seem to want
(18:04):
this text on them. But also,they're connected back to this
kind of Italian Roman traditionof writing on tablets. And
that's not that's like a quite astoried thing in western
archaeology. And so theresulting work was really
supposed to feel quiteoverwhelming in the way that a
Baroque cathedral might but alsoquite flimsy in the way that a
(18:27):
teenager's tabletop gamingefforts had resulted in.
Steph (18:31):
What a great two things to try and marry.
Unknown (18:36):
[musical interlude]
Steph (18:47):
While we're picking apart works that have caught my eye, I
really have to ask about thework is it 'Via Purifico'?
Ash (18:55):
Via Purifico.
Steph (18:56):
Terrific. Fantastic. I have to ask what does Baz
Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo andJuliet have to do with
Squaresoft's 2001 video game,Final Fantasy?
Ash (19:11):
In short, nothing.
Steph (19:13):
Excellent!
Ash (19:13):
But I think that that was the purpose of the marriage.
Yeah. Not unlike the sort ofquite jarring influences that
were behind the burning ofvision. I was interested in.
Well, first of all, I just havea deep and abiding love for that
film. The '96 Romeo and Juliet
Steph (19:29):
Who doesn't; [it's] pretty iconic
Ash (19:31):
with Clare Danes and Leo DiCaprio. And originally, the
show was just going to be aboutthat film.
Steph (19:38):
Oh Okay.
Ash (19:40):
In particular, it was going to be about the set of that film
that has a particular storybehind it. So there's a scene in
the film that set on this kindof miami beach style scene. And
there's like a ruined stage setcalled the Sycamore Grove
Theatre, which is a reference tothe original Shakespearean text
and the character of Mercutio'sdeath scene plays out on that
(20:01):
stage is and it's Luhrmannmaking a filmic reference to the
original theatrical play ofRomeo and Juliet. But an
interesting piece of triviaabout the movie is that, you
know, after they'd recordedMercutio's death scene, you know
where he dies, and then curses,you know, 'a plague on both your
houses', and then a storm rollsin in the film and destroys the
beach and everyone runs away.The filming location in Mexico
(20:25):
City was actually hit by atyphoon after they filmed, and
destroyed that set.
Steph (20:29):
Oh, wow.
Ash (20:29):
And so there was a kind of curious art-meets-life thing
that happened where that stormsort of punches through the
different fictive layers of thefilm. And so the whole show
began with the drawing that's inthat show, which is 'underneath
the grove of sycamore', which isan attempt to forensically
reconstruct the stage set, giventhat there are no drawings
(20:49):
available. And so I sort of hadto work with a few surviving,
like the scenes in the film, andthen a few surviving bits of
Super Eight footage from theproduction material to
reconstruct this thing in adrawn architectural diagrammatic
form. And from there, I sort ofwas thinking a lot about ruins
and a lot about the ways thatruins have been used in the
(21:13):
history of Western architecture.And, you know, particularly in
something like the neoclassicaltradition, ruins are always a
call back to a previous time,ruins are used architecturally
to evoke a lost golden age orsome kind of great knowledge
that has been... that has beenlost or subsumed by, you know,
the ebb and flow of time. Andthat drew me to another
(21:37):
formative influence, I guess, inmy childhood, which was this
video game called Final Fantasy,which I think not many people
know about. It's a category ofgames called Japanese role
playing games, which is, youknow, just a particular style of
video game that comes out ofJapan. And it was translated to
the West in 2001. And it followsa kind of a similar kind of
(21:59):
Hero's Journey arc that Romeoand Juliet does. There's a you
know, a lead romance as well.But it also takes place in a
world that seems to be cycliclydestroyed every 10 years. And so
everyone lives in the ruins of aprecursor civilization. And so I
sort of became interested in theway that the ruin connects the
two texts. But also, there's aparticular... there's a pivotal
(22:22):
scene that plays out in thevideo game, not unlike the one
that occurs in Romeo and Juliet,where the two characters stare
out over a sunken arch that'sslightly off shore. And it looks
quite similar to the arch or tothe sunken theater in Romeo and
Juliet. And so that quite flimsyconnection became the basis for
the entire show, which isessentially imagining a kind of
(22:45):
speculative world in which thesetwo fictional works actually
take place in the same universe.
Steph (22:50):
Wow, that's so cool.
Ash (22:52):
The more and more I sort of make, the more I realized that
I, I really enjoy placing a lotof weight on this quite flimsy
connection.
Steph (23:00):
Yeah.
Ash (23:01):
And then the work of the practice is to try and expand
them out into a kind of richlogic of their own.
Steph (23:06):
Yeah, well, I suppose once you start looking, you're
like, 'Oh, I'm finding more waysI can connect this'.
Ash (23:12):
Yeah, absolutely. And so yeah, and so the work was almost
about trying to build anevidence base for this insane
theory. And I was also thinkinga lot about how that fits into
these previous, you know, themesof knowledge systems and things.
Steph (23:27):
Yeah, it does tie back.
Ash (23:28):
Yeah, it presents a it presents a logic of its own, it
presents a world of its own. AndI think that's what is draws me
to this this kind of speculativeangle, which has been emerging
recently. Just because they youknow, just because it's
speculative. It's still presentsa logic about the world, which
is not too dissimilar from theway that we report the world
through science or throughfiction.
Steph (23:48):
Yeah. Amazing.
Unknown (24:03):
[musical interlude]
Steph (24:11):
Now, coming to more of the present; I think we've been
quite chronological. One of yourmost recent things that you've
been doing is you've had studiospace at Adelaide Contemporary
Experimental for is it most of2022? Tell us how that's been.
Ash (24:29):
It's been great. I haven't had designated studio space
since I left art school, beenreally wonderful to get back and
sort of claim a space for makingagain, because, you know,
everything has just occurred onthe kitchen table and you know,
in just absolutely kind offrantic mess of life. And it's
really nice to have a designatedspace and really, also important
(24:50):
to have time to think about mywork in larger timescales as
well. Like there's a there's adesignated place for the
practice and it doesn't have towork with the cycles of home and
the cycles of funding and thecycles of semesters and all
those sorts of things. So it'sbeen a really significant
opportunity as well to work withMegan Robson, who's the curator
at the MCA, but who has beenworking with ACE this year to
(25:11):
sort of mentor myself and theother studio artists towards
this kind of studios 2022exhibition, which I suppose is
the combination of everyone'swork this year and the things
we've been working towards.
Steph (25:22):
And how many of you were there in the studios this year?
Ash (25:25):
There are five of us. So aside from me, there is also
Chelsea Farquhar, Dani Reynolds,Shaye Dương and Cecilia Tizard.
And it's been really wonderfulto get to know them as well and
bounce ideas back and forth. Ithink we're all really fast
friends now, which is just anawesome thing to have coming
from a home studio and where youjust work silently into the
(25:46):
night. It can get a lotsometimes.
Steph (25:51):
Oh, cool. And so yes, Studios 2022 is the show that
has culminated, so everyone'sgot work represented in there.
Is that all recent, like workthat has been built over this
last 12 months?
Ash (26:03):
Yeah. So fortunately, ACE was in a position to be able to
commission new work for the showthat's downstairs this time. So
the the offerings that are inthe studio show are all new work
that have all been made thisyear in response to the
different investigations thatpeople have been undertaking.
That's great.
Steph (26:19):
And while we're talking about it, what are the dates for
the exhibition?
Ash (26:24):
It runs from the 12th of November to the 17th of
December, in 2022 yes. Shout outto those of you listening from
2023. We made we made iteverybody.
Steph (26:35):
this is a ruin of the year before. Excellent. And can
you talk about the work thatyou've got in the show?
Ash (26:42):
Yeah. So the work that is in the show downstairs is kind
of the first iteration of anidea that sort of came to me
when I was drawing, spending alot of time drawing the theater
and the last work in the lastbody of work. I've been really
interested in a long timecompanion, I think in my
(27:02):
academic life has been thehistory of technology and
looking at the way thattechnology tells us a lot about
the cultures and histories fromwhich it arises. And I'm not
just talking about technology interms of iPhones and things, but
technology in terms of you know,stone tools like shipping, like
you know, all those kinds ofexpanded built things that
enable us to sort of control ourenvironment and work in the
(27:23):
world. And I've got a longstanding interest in archaeology
as well. But I was thinking alot about specifically the
materials of lead and glass andhow they have a really long
archaeological legacy, like theyexist quite far back in the
historical record, but also theextremely relevant materials
(27:44):
today for a number of things.And one of the things that was
kind of emerging, maybe this wasjust because of the stuff that I
was watching when I was makingit watching listening to when I
was making the previousexhibition, it was it was a lot
about nuclear technology andnuclear weapons. And, you know,
(28:04):
following this kind of premiseof how do I draw, how do I use
my practice to draw togetherthese two kind of quite distinct
aspects of history and culture,I decided to sort of look at the
materials of lead and glass anduse them as a way of connecting
our contemporary understandingof nuclear technology. And what
that tells us about modernhistory and modern life, with
(28:26):
the archaeological uses of leadand glass and how that tells us
about historical cultures andtimes. And so one of the
historical uses of lead has beenas a writing implement, you
know, it's quite a soft, supplemetal that supports the written
language quite well. But it'salso been used historically to
Lion coffins. And the reasonbeing is because it's so soft
(28:48):
and supple, it enables it tocreate a seal, essentially, sort
of preserving the remains ofpeople who are interred inside
it. It's a historical tradition.It goes back actually, I don't
even know how far it goes back.But it lives on today in the way
that actually the British royalfamily is still buried in
leadline. coffins. So if youlook at the footage of Diana's
(29:09):
funeral, for example, you'd say10 pallbearers straining under
the weight of what's actually aquarter time coffin. But the the
other use for leadline coffinsis in nuclear accidents. Because
the Yeah, because the victims ofnuclear accidents, their bodies
(29:29):
are still radioactive. And so byburying them in leadline coffins
you're essentially containingthat radiation.
Steph (29:34):
This is such dark information.
Ash (29:38):
And I think that's been a real challenge of this work is
to look at it from you know,the, the inevitability of
looking at it from a purelyhistorical perspective, because
that's where I depart from butthen it draws on you know, it
touches life so much that thatactually becomes quite sinister.
And I think a bit of that shinesthrough in the in the artifacts
Downstairs there hopefully it'snot too overwhelming
Steph (30:00):
Amazing. I definitely have to go back and sit with
that work again. Oh my goodness.
Ash (30:07):
But if my work becomes too overwhelming just look over at
Chelsea's acrobats and it'll allbe okay.
Steph (30:13):
There's a nice balance in that space for sure.
Ash (30:15):
Yes.
Steph (30:17):
Amazing. And where can people follow along with your
next projects and what you're upto?
Ash (30:22):
Oh, well, I'm on Instagram, you can follow me at @Ash.Tower.
And that's where people can stayin touch with all this sort of
zany things I'm getting up toand it's also got links to
everything else that I do.
Steph (30:33):
Excellent. Well, thank you. Thanks for letting us pick
your brain. And yeah, we'll seewhat you do next.
Ash (30:38):
Thank you.
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