one season just like her, 2003
Mixed media/sound installation
Cleveland House Stables Gallery, Cleveland, Tasmania

About the work:

Cleveland House Stables was once a staging post for horse-drawn carriages travelling between Launceston and Hobart. Horse races used to be held on a course behind the house when it was the Bald Faced Stag Inn. Where are the horses now?

The installation focuses on the use of pregnant mares, often held in captivity so their urine can be collected for the production of a particular brand of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

This is a widely prescribed and popular product taken by an estimated 9 million women worldwide. It reaps billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical company each year. However, the industry has hidden costs and outcomes for over 75,000 mares and their foals.

In broader terms, the work refers to global issues of excess and abuse in a society that considers itself civilised.

Each room includes recorded cello sound (a single note played continuously and deliberately wavering slightly out of tune) and ambient traffic sound from the highway.

(this work was part of the Highway1 project, curated by Jane Deeth for the Ten Days on the Island festival)

Unedited footage of a walk-through of the installation one season just like her, 2003
Video

Premarin Pillow, 2003
Etched and painted sandstone, horse hair

For the Sandstone Challenge, Seaport, Launceston, Tasmania, each artist was given a 1ft x 1ft x 1ft block of sandstone to work with.

Mine became stone 'tablets' stuffed with horsehair, referring to the abuse of horses in the production of Premarin hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Cache Corps (Black Beauty), 2003
Etched horse hide, horsehair handles, etched velvet pillow, chewed cardboard, wooden plinth and brass plaque

Artists were invited to make something with a cardboard box provided by the sponsors/curator. The exhibition was being held near a horse racing track, so I chewed and spat out my box to make 'treasure', and placed it in a mock trophy/funerary urn.

The statement read: "We can frame or ‘box’ our knowledge all we like, but no matter how long you chew over some things, they are still hard to swallow. Some 75,000 pregnant mares are used in the production of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This industry has hidden costs and outcomes. What do we prize? Who are the winners? And is ‘winning’ worth it?"

Plaque wording:

BLACK BEAUTY
revised edition

PRESENTED BY AHP

1942–

All rights reversed. No part may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written permission of the owner.

[AHP is American Home Products, a subsidiary of which at the time was Wyeth Ayerst, producers of the HRT tablets named Premarin]

Sorry/Salved Pillows, 2002
Artist's hair, silk, silk thread, artist's hair thread, hessian, bed pillows, hand stitched

My work is often concerned with Scotland, the place I am from, and Tasmania, the place I have come to inhabit. The process of ‘settling’ in a country can be punctuated by feelings of displacement and isolation. It is these I explore here, seeking comfort from the familiar even though this comfort may be burdened with guilt.

(Exhibited in Alumni Exhibition, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston [curator: Ralf Haertel])

Samhain, 1994

Samhain was the result of a year-long collaboration between myself and performing arts students in our final year/s of undergraduate study.

These are selected images of the work I made for the performance installation.

Performed at the Kelsall and Kemp Building, Launceston, Tasmania, 31 October 1994.