Tell an Untold Story: Researching The Presence of Absence and Abandoned Objects

 Katarina Weslien (2013) - a hand blown glass ball of water from the Ganga

'Across the room, Katarina Weslien offers us spiritual waters transported from afar, inviting us to imagine the missing location. And as time passes, we witness these waters transform. They become mystically suspended between two worlds, neither here nor there, not what they were nor what they will be.' 

- http://contemporaryartscouncil.org/the-presence-of-absence

As well as re-contextualising water, Weslien is also interested in the objects that she finds alongside the rivers she pilgrimages to. She is really interested in where the water/ objects have come from and what has come before. She also looks at how their function is altered when their context is. Is holy water still holy when removes from the source and transported overseas? You could say the same for the objects along the canal. She also speaks about how often things that aren’t supposed to be there are what grab your eye i.e. the mess around the edges of her studio or the objects lining the canal.

I could build an entire book simply of decontextualised objects - tell a narrative of the canal without the canal. Or I could look at drawing the canal with a focus on the misplaced objects? The objects imposing on the setting?

Themes: Abandoned objects, remnants of people

I am finding it really hard to research these themes simply on google because everything that comes up is totally irrelevant. Could I use better key words? I am looking for any stories or writings about them and perhaps artists that look at them. I did find lots of art exhibitions about ‘the presence of absence’ and it was interesting to see how different people explore the same theme. Some artists took objects out of context while others used lights to illuminate what wasn’t there. I think looking at how artists use objects in their work is where I need to head next.