Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre presents - DEATH

I'm very honoured and excited about being invited to exhibit in this show!

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Art about death typically brings to mind a certain kind of theatricality or a sombre tone, a classic still life with a skull and an extinguished candle, however the contemporary artists in this exhibition are talking about death in unexpected ways. Death has touched everyone and its effect is often life changing. It is a subject with many complexities. It is capable of stirring powerful emotions and actions, meanwhile by definition it is a simple scientific fact of life, “the cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism”.

This exhibition focuses on the ways in which we process and deal with death and mortality; practically, emotionally, physically and psychologically, rather than the moment or meaning of death. Death is an unromantic look at some of the many facets of death including a suicide pact in the suburbs of Perth, subverting a fear of death with faux enlightenment, talking to the dead through white noise and the vestigial in elation to the embodiment of memory, archive and grief.

Artists: Declan Apuatimi, England Banggala, Carla Cescon, Ronnie Djanbardi, Simon Gende, Nora Holland, Richard Lewer, Thomas Munkanomi, Tony Pilakui, Patrick Pound, Samuel ‘Marbuk’ Poantimului, Clementine Puruntatameri, Robert Puruntatameri, Tracy Puruntatameri, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Helen Shelley, Laurens Tan and myself. 

Curated by Toni Bailey.

Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, 23 May - 5 July 2015

www.casulapowerhouse.com/exhibitions/death

Inch'Allah online project with Jux no longer exists...

What do you do when your entire online project disappears along with 1000s of other peoples? 

The link that I came across never worked to retrieve my work... My project was linked to 3 arts websites and my blog...

It's super embarrassing but what can you do? My project 'Inch'Allah' no longer exists :(

Art Guide Australia, c3 contemporary art space, Waaw Saint-Louis Senegal
sorry :(

@JuxDotCom #ARSEHOLES 
You owe us BIG TIME 
http://farewell.jux.com/#/

Hearse Hijack

Here's me on ABC Radio in Darwin talking about my brother-in-law and his kidnapping in the great Hearse Hijack of 2014:

https://soundcloud.com/1057darwin/hearse-hijack

Preview of Inch’Allah in Art Guide Australia

..."For all its specificity, Inch’Allah says plenty about the experience of being in a different country for the first time. It offers a narrativeless deluge of images and thoughts – bound together, though neither neatly nor clearly – as filtered through existing preoccupations and newly emerging concerns. Instead of honing in on specific moments and their meanings – the cocktail at this beach, the hike on that mountain – the photographs bleed into each other and spread out, suggesting something bigger and more evasive – something you can’t pin down by clicking on a heart-shaped icon."

See the link for the full text:  PREVIEW Inch'Allah by Toby Fehily 

PROJECT LAB 3 - c3 contemporary art space

INCH’ ALLAH
HAYLEY WEST

Inch’Allah [God willing] is an everyday saying I’ve grown to love in Saint-Louis. Spoken mainly at the end of sentences as a way to agree without confirmation (let’s meet tomorrow – yes, Inch’Allah) or as a response to a question without a necessarily positive outcome (can I have your phone number? – Inch’Allah!) The answer is left to fate, Inch’Allah is chance. This project positions random images with random personal thoughts, much how living here has become. Nothing is processed with ease.

Inch’Allah by Hayley West - a c3 online project

le linceul (burial shroud)

The linceul is steadily growing with silvery fish scales. It's been a cathartic exercise during the sweat filled build-up like heat. I haven't returned to the beach many times, I find the dead bloated animals, roaming ghost nets and mountainess rubbish all too confronting. Waaw is my haven in front of a fan.

Waaw Residence, Saint-Louis, Senegal

The first three weeks of living in Saint-Louis has been relatively relaxed after a horrid few days in J'burg and Dakar - plane delayed, missed flight, luggage delayed, laptop stolen... just the usual start to a three month adventure. 

The dust I didn't expect, the great baguettes I did. Ramona has her own studio, Tobias and I are sharing one. There's a great bunch of artists staying here with us at present, and the weather has only just turned a little humid. 

There's so much to write already, I feel there's not enough time between wifi connections and working in the studio.  

One of the thousands of goats here.

Ramona with baguette at Waaw Studios 

Beach at Guet Ndar

Stills from '1 million years' dvd

WORLD premiere of '1 million years'

Tonight! 
Friday 21st March, 6pm 
NCCA Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

Di Sana Project - remnants of the dead and demands on the living

kitten skull, Leura

The Di Sana Project is open to participation from those who live in India, Indonesia or Australia. Projects explore storytelling, personal and social memories, place, identity, culture and related topics.

Please participate in my project! Explore here: Di Sana Project - Hayley West

Twitter #remnantsofthedead

Instagram #remnantsofthedead

OR go directly to the Di Sana Facebook page: facebook.com/Di-Sana-Project

1 million years

In the Screen Room at NCCA...

22 March to 19 April, 2014 (Opening: Friday 21 March 6pm)

1 million years sees the return of another former Darwin-based artist to NCCA, with NSW-based Hayley West employing sculpture and video-based performance to address persistent themes in her work relating to the 'vestigial': the embodiment of memory, archive and grief. 

NCCA's Screen Room will become a 'makeshift temple' through fabric-based sculptures and a video work in which West performs a series of acts in a prehistoric-like 'grotto' setting in the Blue Mountains where she resides. These acts broadly suggest family histories, bereavement and the vestigial. 'By contextualising the vestigial into a contemporary art framework', states West, 'there is an attempt to alleviate grief, relax impending emotional upheavals, or assist in the recovery of supressed or avoided emotions'.

Link: 1 Million Years - NCCA

Something to Say

Something to Say (mum's scarf, pearls) 2014

I do have something to say...
i've been sick for two months now, green is also the strangest colour to work with.

Trying hard to get back into the studio...

'Shall' 2013 (mum's shawl, broken balloons)

... reading Heidegger, grotto dreaming, erecting walls, worrying about family, asbestos woes, dog escaping, fart machines, chickens dead, interstate visitors, Senegal plans ...