No Going Back

It is altogether fitting that curator Meaghan Shelton selected the title Rites of Passage and its subsequent artistic content for the current exhibition, especially with regard to the founder of the term, ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957). Like many artists, van Gennep was a bit of a misfit, who dedicated his life and considerable intellect to the early scholarship of ethnology and identifying significant types of social groupings and standings. He described his efforts as “a rough sketch of an immense picture” (1909), but held a very broad and, to us, contemporary view of the effective role of the individual in shaping and influencing society. And, although he identified numerous types, Van Gennep’s concept of rites of passage went beyond the official listing of celebratory rituals and events, and would clearly have included more private and personal events. “…every change of place, of social situation... all innovation and very often even all modification is accompanied… by rites... which always follow the same order” (1932). The order he proposed was separation, transition and re-formation or re-integration. Yet, however these stages transpire, one thing is certain; the result is the same; we are altered, a change has occurred and there is no going back…

Changing Rooms

 Van Gennep described any given society through a metaphor, "as a kind of house divided into rooms and corridors." A passage occurs when individuals leave one room or social group in order to enter another group, presumably, via a corridor of rituals or rites; in this metaphor, they literally change rooms. 

What makes us shift? Artist Steve Warburton refers to “challenges, both intended or thrown at us”, that precipitate change. Victoria Garnons-Williams depicts specific and intended challenges for three young women: “one is a recent bride, one is striving for her PhD, and one is navigating the demands of early career in a large organisation- all significant passages for women in our society.” Fiona McMonagle considers a change thrown her way and “investigates the complexities of our everyday lives. The works in this exhibition draw upon the quirks of growing up Irish Catholic in the outer western suburbs of Melbourne.” Courtney Pederson draws on the family archives and “explores the nexus between personal experience and the public realm: the place where identity is negotiated and history is made”. 

 Change may come via osmosis, suggestion and reflection, as with Meaghan Shelton, who “as a child attending local church, required to sit still, I absorbed sponge-like, the aesthetics as an unconscious imprint.” Mona Ryder alludes to the subtle catalyst of words, “persuasive, comforting or lethal. They are often willingly or unwillingly distorted or manipulated and this presents broader social and psychological issues, especially secrets held, shared and how personal information is passed on.” 

The artists in Rites of Passage work with the belief that the next room in the human house might be something that is better constructed. The capacity to visualise possibilities, or through certain revelations, affect change in others, is a fitting purview of the artist. Louiseann King imagines things invisible at present as she “generates new ways of seeing the Australian landscape and the women that have come to know it.” Tyza Stewart imagines a future “when gender is done and understood or experienced in ways that are unexpected to many people.” By imagining an outward view, Stewart asks people to “reconsider how they understand themselves.” Greg Paton “considers those in society who feel they don't belong. For the outsider, there often develops a perceived need for escape. The pressure to remain in the spotlight, to perform, or to live up to peer expectation can take its toll… the viewer is drawn to the plight of the characters in the narrative.” The capacity for changing what we may see as an inevitable future is a basis for Wanda Gillespie, who creates mock histories and “artefacts from a future time”, which are presented to “explore the possibility of alternate realities where all exists simultaneously and time is mere illusion.” For Gillespie, the future is now.

What happens in the Corridor?

In Meaghan Shelton’s Ars longa, vita brevis, “the Coral snake, central with its body entwining, easily manoeuvres through and around the symbols/ obstacles, consuming some in its path.” This image of movement from one state to another expresses perfectly the sense of transition that rites of passage require, but transitions are not always poised or untroublesome. An action is required, a move must be made, a leap of faith taken. Transitions can leave one vulnerable. “They are the first act of intimacy, the first speech made, the first travel experience, the first flight, the bungee jump”, according to Steve Warburton, who adds, “As is often the case with a right [sic] of passage, there is a sense of fear or uncertainty that goes with it. Sometimes there is danger, pain, a fatality.” Tyza Stewart recollects “a continual process of interrogating your thoughts and really being critical of what you are told by society.” Interrogating, questioning what is, often describes the uncertainties of passage. Fiona McMonagle probes “the events that we accept without question, and the moments that we take for granted. I want these works to simultaneously celebrate and ask questions.” In an extensive context, Courtney Pedersen outlines the disjuncture and relationship between national mythologies, which “are conveyed as coherent stories of cultural formation,” and family storytelling, which “is often chaotic and contradictory, revealing deeper and sometimes unsettling truths about both individual experience and the broader cultural context.” Wanda Gillespie comprehensively “questions the nature of reality through narrative.”

We may find guidance or solace. Greg Paton considers “The pressure to remain in the spotlight, to perform, or to live up to peer expectation can take its toll. Moving to darkened recesses, away from the glare of scrutiny and judgement, brings solace and respite.” In Meaghan Shelton’s work, as a testament to the long history of craft, which itself has been turned to for solace, “the embroidery itself defines the snake’s path; techniques vary from dense to very fine.” Here, on a variety of levels, the materials of creation provide a ritual pathway. Louiseann King’s work “subverts hierarchical masculine sculptural tropes and the language and hierarchy of sculptural materials and methods through incorporating ‘high art’ materials and techniques along with vernacular making materials and methods (i.e. sewing).” Wanda Gillespie says “I felt the messages encoded in the material. Hope and fear for the future, a deep sorrow for the past and regret for the earths’ destruction at the hands of human kind. I saw the sculptures appear in an earlier period, sent in hope of planting the seed of evolution in previous generations.” 

The instability of passage can be eased through ritual and belief. In many of her works, Mona Ryder references the sacred. “In both Christian and Eastern religions people place offerings on the altar. Candles can be lit to offer a prayer for those in need at shrines to one side of the cathedral.” Ryder also extends the sacred to ordinary lives: “Although people may not be religious, they may still say a few words for loved ones in need or for those that have departed… Each year we hope the next will be better or like Alice in Wonderland (the drink me potion) aspire to change our perceptions radically.” Ironically, consoled by the words of a fake philosopher, Victoria Garnons-Williams takes heart in the words, “most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying… from the hope that future generations might understand more.”

Individual experience and power

Expressing his belief in freedom of thought and his belief in the importance of the individual, Van Gennep wrote, “I have too often insisted of this power of the individual to modify the collective situation… (1920).” Society does not remain stagnant or unchanged and the “house of rooms and corridors” that represent any given society is regularly renovated by those who move through it. Victoria Garnons-Williams acknowledges the grand scale of historical change, but feels that often “we persistently try to help make things better on a smaller, more personal scale through relationships, education, and art.” The artists in Rites of Passage draw our attention to different aspects of experience and history, presenting us with alternative perspectives, changing the significance of things by revealing the constructs of social structures, by revealing what has been lost and by proposing what we can yet achieve. However, these contemporary artists’ starting point is found within their individual and immediate experience of the world. The selection of images and texts exhibited by Courtney Pedersen are “drawn from the artist’s own family archive and each represents a story that assumed significance at key turning points in the artist’s life.” Yet, Pedersen’s perspective is the bigger picture- “of history, biography, politics, ideology.” 

It is the parallel universe of individual experience at work and the ability of others to apply things to themselves that makes change possible through art. At its plainest, the artist hopes that others can relate to what they see. Tyza Stewart explains, “I want people to be able to use my self-portraits as a prompt to think about their body and self in ways different to how they usually would.” However, the individual may also signify the collective within the work. As Fiona McMonagle states, “Although my subjects are often known to me, I will treat them as anonymous archetypes and as a representation of universal experiences.” The settings and props found in the work of art may also prompt an extension beyond what we see in the individual sense, as Greg Paton expresses: “These miniature living landscapes reference our globalised, ever shrinking and increasingly fragile planet.” Mona Ryder sets a stage where “A red velvet curtain creates a theatrical setting for the installations, like two acts of a play”, and notionally, as Shakespeare would have it, the viewer becomes the player. 

Individual artists can reclaim and re-present the past, especially when collective but important meanings are lost, never recorded or need to be updated. Meaghan Shelton was gifted a Victorian tea towel, hand crocheted, “because ‘I would know what to do with it’ and a personal connection to the materials was assured. Finely handcrafted lace, doilies and linen are no longer of use to much of the current generation.” And so, a process of individual connection and contemporality began. Similarly, Wanda Gillespie's work combines “finely detailed carved elements with more abstracted and organic forms. …traditional craft techniques such as wood carving, are used in contemporary ways.” Louiseann King chooses to disrupt history by working “from a different sensibility informed by her gender and interest in women’s vernacular domestic making techniques.”

Freedom of thought and creative attention turned towards the familiar can disrupt the way we understand things and help us discover new meanings. Mona Ryder is “intrigued by the tongue as an object. The tongue is a part of our body we seem to have little desire to expose. Unlike children, adults rarely explore it as an object.” Rarely explored, but real. And so close, mostly overlooked. The “discarded, overlooked and ephemeral within the local environment” is Louiseann King’s starting point for the “monumental and heroic medium” of bronze. Fiona McMonagle trawls “the seemingly familiar terrains of the suburban… to depict the ambiguity of known and perceived that imbues our urban landscapes.” Rethinking what, for the rest of us, seems self-evident, the artist finds new connections. Steve Warburton reconsiders “the relationship between the landscape and the silhouetted figures within the narrative.” The silhouettes are nameless and faceless, “shadow puppets”, and we slip hypothetically into these shadows, indirectly transforming into the work and trying out the story for ourselves.

Visual and Material Symbolism

The artists’ repertoire includes images and materials that are constantly persuading us to see things from a new perspective. Visual and material symbols are a language for the artist, and once the viewer has become familiar with an artist’s work, the symbols can be translated into what may be an imprecise but yet meaningful discourse. Mona Ryder references some of her symbols to those that might be familiar; ‘I am intrigued by the way religions have drawn on objects and use images to act as powerful icons to embed or trigger the devotee’s memory of core beliefs and values.” However, Ryder also adds to and shifts symbols within a lexicon of her own, such as “an Altar and font…, a velvet curtain …forming a small chapel or alcove/devotional areas, …sculptures of dog heads made to scale hang with sculptures of human heads on the other side of the curtain.  They hang likes mediaeval spirits anchored to the ground by sinkers.” Similarly, Meaghan Shelton’s starting point was with memories of the religious icons and liturgies, individualising and translating motifs into personal symbols. Shelton recalls “The visual spectacle with stained glass, candles and heady incense, marked rites of passage I was unable to grasp as a child, more specifically as an adolescent female. Imbuing the work with my own sacred symbology, transformed into universal readings.” Symbolic readings are illusive. In Steve Warburton’s work, the shadow puppets themselves transform; “their role is that of story teller, or initiate.” Wanda Gillespie’s installations “are often accompanied by short fictions, using real and invented historical facts to create slippages in linear space/time.” The viewer is required to think through symbolic references, but these are not necessarily ones that they are used to; imagination is required.

The objects and resources of the archive, such as maps and official papers, hold an authoritative and therefore symbolic position in our society and this often becomes the locus for art. The selection and editing, the installation and aesthetic presentation of archival material within the gallery setting bestows a special status on them for our contemplation. For Fiona McMonagle, “Working, initially, from old family photographs I try to separate myself from the sentimental and look at the snap shot through fresh eyes. It is through this process that I begin to see a much more complicated and loaded image, one that talks about culture and all the peculiarities of our upbringing.” New formats for presenting such work have been developed and indeed invented in contemporary art to push the boundaries of traditional art. Courtney Pedersen utilises “ephemeral installations, projections, sound works, performances and artist books.” New materials and processes are experimented with in order to help communicate new ideas. Tyza Stewart says, “The decision to work on towels came through thinking about what materials people literally put onto or hold in very close proximity to their body…” Louiseann King works with “the abhorrent, the discarded, the overlooked, the ephemeral and the feminine” and considers herself “a maker and a collector of time and place; collects, salvages, collates, regroups, juxtaposes and re-renders”. 

Sensitivity to human characteristics is requisite in interpreting the visual and material symbols of art. The artists generously share their insights, both verbally and in their art. Greg Paton explains the relationship between his process and its symbolic meaning: “I construct the mise en scene through the lens, tiny humans and plastic models are tenderly placed on a narrow focal plane… Utilising the ‘close up’, the viewer is drawn to the plight of the characters in the narrative, the lens invites intimate access to private moments.” Private moments and thoughts are subtle; insight and speculation must be applied. In selecting material, Tyza Stewart mused, “Does someone use a towel differently if it has an image of a friend or stranger painted into it?” And in selecting the ambiguous gesture of a knowing wink, Victoria Garnons-Williams suggests that perhaps someone knows something more than we do. Do they? 

Steve Warburton has stated that Rites of Passage “are doorways that help us leave one age of life and enter another.” They also help individuals to find their way from one stage to another and most importantly, for society to modify itself. In this exhibition, history is reinterpreted, the familiar made strange, and changes in our individual and social standing come under scrutiny. More than that, the exhibition challenges the idea of what a Rite of Passage might be.

By Victoria Garnons Williams PhD

References:

van Gennep, Arnold. (1909) Les Rites de Passage.

Zumwalt, Rosemary. (1978) The Enigma of Arnold van Gennep

Quotations in catalogue text from Artists Statements (2019)

List of Works:

Steve Warburton

First liason

Bungee boy

Learning to fly

The facilitator

Is it your choice

Virgin orator (all works 2018)

Victoria Garnons- Williams

Beth, newlywed

Celise, alumna

Charlotte, PhD scholar (all works from the series Knowing wink, 2019)

Fiona McMonagle

Cuddle 

Hanging frock

Sunday Best (all works 2018)

Courtney Pedersen

# 18 Australian history of numbers

# 16

# 48

#

#

#          (2011-ongoing/2018)

Mona Ryder

Loose tongues, 2013-2019

Tongue covers, 2013

Intercession, 2013-2019

Tyza Stewart

Slide Flail

Happy birthday

Life size (all works 2019)

Louiseann King

plurima naribus, 2019

Greg Paton

#1 To the shadows from the fair he ran

#2

#3 (all works 2018)

Meaghan Shelton

ars longa, vita brevis, 2019