In the first iteration of the work, large-scale printed works and a sound installation made from a cassette tape the artist’s father recorded 25 years ago (when he first arrived in Australia) were used in a performance-installation that explored the relationship between father-daughter in parallel to the relationship between Australian-Argentinian national identities. The performance offered an experience of migration through fragmented paperwork and sound—covering the arrival, settlement, and the lingering aftermath of migration. The ways in which this experience is framed by its documentation, both official and personal, also reveals how intimate family relations are narrated by nationalist rhetoric.
In the second iteration of the work, the artist took up in residency in the Metanoia Theatre gallery space and for three days erased these documents. This involved two actions: using eucalyptus oil to hand scrub the large-scale images and an industrial shredder which destroyed a scrolled transcription of the sound file.
Artist: Alex Talamo
Outside Eye: Leisa Shelton
Sound Design: Kelly Ryall
Lighting Design: Alex Talamo
Lighting Assistance: Paula Van Beek and Amelia Lever-Davidson
Photography: Jordan Prosser
Actions
My Father, Your Gaze, Victorian College of the Arts (2012)
My Father, Your Gaze, Live works program, Metanoia Theatre, Brunswick (2015)
Responses
‘I was most fascinated by your role in the work, and the impact/presence of you as a physical body. The shift from your body having a purely functional role to gradually being the actual site of the work was very strong. It was as though we moved from this highly mediated place to you as an individual body, and as the daughter of your father.
…
The was the work evoked “a searching and an absence” was beautiful and quite moving: “He found his children in Australia… I couldn’t find my father in Argentina”. I felt a personal connection to this.”
– Ingrid Voorendt, 2012
Press
Metanoia Theatre website
