works on paper - weaving
artist statement
During the New South Wales lockdown from Covid19 Delta outbreak in 2021, I like so many others sat glued to the television watching the 11am covid briefing given by the then Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the NSW Health team. I was struck by the language used especially by the premier who rarely gave condolences or comments on the loss of lives, growing numbers of hospitalisations, those in ICU or on ventilators. Instead her focus was all about how many vaccines - 'jabs in arms' we were getting done to give us back our 'freedom' to return to 'covid normal'. The language surrounding deaths was minimised or labelling in a way that deflected blame from the state government from it's lack of urgency to lock down and protect it's population. Instead it focussed on the fact that those deaths were mostly attributed to vaccine availability and priority. Many who died did not have access to a vaccine. Many who died were not yet eligible to get the vaccine, but the burden and language surrounding this in a way finger pointed that it was the victims fault, not the government for not getting the vaccine rollout done in a more urgent way. It is important to note that acquiring the vaccine was the sole responsibility of the federal government. The much praised 'Gold Standard' of NSW quarantine, the anti-lockdown rhetoric and the decision to stay open even after other states had closed their borders to NSW to prevent the initial spreading of the Delta variant were at odds with the reality of the situation. The NSW Government made poor decisions in controlling the quarantine outbreak. Decisions that led to over 600 deaths in NSW (as of Dec 2021), an outbreak that spread to many states in Australia resulting in unavoidable deaths in Victoria (over 500 deaths) and ACT (14 deaths). The NSW outbreak also travelled to New Zealand. The other term used that I found most disturbing, was the use of 'underlying health condition'. As if this was the sole reason a person died. Over half of the Australian population have one or more underlying health conditions. It was while watching an episode of The Project on television that this use of language was discussed and explained that it was victim blaming and a distraction from poor policy. From this germ of an idea, I combined the QR codes that we had been using to register where we were going throughout the pandemic (logging on to the app when we shopped for groceries), to track and trace outbreaks, with the language used to describe the 'casualties' of the pandemic. In each of these works a frequently used term in the reporting of the daily covid updates has been highlighted. Reframed if you like to get people to think about the importance of language and the messages it communicates. The reporting of the news in different states in Australia is starkly different depending upon whether you live in a Liberal or Labour held government state. The news and reporting has been extremely biased in the language used and the allocation of blame or generosity given to leaders by the mainstream media. It has been fascinating and frightening to witness the power of the press in this dissemination of the news and what is reported and how it is reported. It is interesting to note that gag orders were given to people working in the health sector in NSW when ramping of ambulances and over burdening of hospitals became more and more the norm. |
qr code series
framed: 25.5cm (h) x 25.5cm (w) newspaper, Sumi ink, 2021 art@work, central coast, NSW A QR code is made up of dark and light-coloured squares which represent information that is stored and can be 'read' by using your phone or tablet or a scanner much like a barcode is 'read'. The information stored can be a range of things including; an image, website link, text, music, pdf, email, twitter, wifi, apps and so much more. For these works, the QR code contains text.
Each work is made by weaving newspaper to create the unique QR code. The dark newspaper was woven from Harvey Norman advertisements in the paper. Harvey Norman was one of a number of big businesses who claimed millions of dollars from the 'Job Keeper' programme. During the extended lockdowns it did not run at a loss, but rather as a profit and yet, until recently it did not repay the government funds it received. This was not a requirement by the government (unlike the Robodebt scheme). Harvey Norman claimed $22 million. After it's 2020-21 financial year postings of record profits, and much public backlash, it repaid $6 million of the government handouts it received. The light newspaper contrast was woven from pages cut from the obituaries and racing guides of the newspaper. When there was no access to a vaccine, and later limited access, the chance of contracting covid and recovering from it or dying from the disease was, for many vulnerable people in the community, a bit of a gamble. To create an opaque dark contrast for the codes to be readable, black Sumi ink was used to unify the dark woven papers. This work is interactive. You can read the codes. |