2021 — Shelley Watters

ENOUGH

2021, single channel video 4:25, and ink on paper 50 x 70cm.

ENOUGH responds to the thick atmosphere of women’s anger experienced in Australia in early 2021. The popular media was filled with women dealing with unchanging, entrenched systemic misogyny. My artist research for this project included the work of Nele Zaevedo, Tehching Hsieh, Marina Ambramovic and Carolee Schneemann and drew on Koa Beck’s must-read book White Feminism. ENOUGH was selected for exhibition in When you think about feminism, what do you think? George Paton Gallery: Feminisms 1975-2022 (16-27 May, 2022), curated by Emma Shaw and Sandra Bridie.

Residue

2021. Vintage perfume bottle, salt, dimensions 10cm x 2cm x 2cm.

The artist bottled her tears in lockdown. She also had delicious foods delivered. The tears have since evaporated.

rinse, repeat

2021. single channel video, 02:22.

Disrupt

2021. Mirrors, red cellophane and fishing line installed 7 August, 2021 Girrawheen Park, Bidjigal land (Earlwood).

iso

2021. Photographic series and installation. Cardboard from deliveries in lockdown, cellophane, mirror, toy car, candle, repurposed toilet lock. Dimensions variable.

While reflecting on the various ways that people experienced isolation and lockdowns I took nighttime photographs attracted by variations in light seeping out of windows and doors. This culminated in a sculptural installation that was inspired by Brook Andrew’s (2020) reflections on Kapwani Kiwanga’s, pink-blue (2017) in ArtForum. Her sculptures that emit light reference 18th century New York City’s “lantern laws”. These laws mandated that Black, mixed-race and Indigenous enslaved people carry candle lanterns while walking in the streets after dark alone – which made it difficult to attend night schools (Dark Sky 2021). In Race and Surveillance, Simone Browne also argues that racialized surveillance still happens today and is used to control. She also argues that the lantern laws were the first type of surveillance, but not the last.

Light as surveillance, savior, voyeur, light in motion, life in stasis.

Judgement

2020-2021. Rough salt & pepper diamond in ring box, magnifying glass, dimensions variable.

Judgement explores the impact and idea of looking. The work its activated by the participant's gaze. Selected for exhibition in Herland III, The Body Resilient curated by Freÿa Black, March 2021, at the Women’s Library Newtown.