Sriwhana Spong

Sriwhana Spong, Costume for a Mourner, 2010, choreographed and danced by Benjamin Ord, high-definition digital video, duration 8 min 22 sec

http://michaellett.com/artist/sriwhana-spong/

While Spong had shown an interest in exploring her Balinese heritage through her work since early experiments after graduating, Muttnik marked a shift in her aesthetic altogether. From explorations of sci-fi in her earliest video work, these new works cleverly fused the language of ritual assemblage, sculpture and time-based media home to the popular language of Science Fiction. Muttnik then became the springboard for several new projects that use a similar technique: constructing Balinese ritual form in found and ephemeral materials and using the camera to distort their context and location. The effect is similarly disorientating to the sci-fi editor, who charges the camera lens with a point of view, which makes all objects, and characters feel unfamiliar and disorientating.

https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artist/7105/sriwhana-spong

https://vimeo.com/28337660

Costume for a Mourner re-invents a dance from a 1920 Ballet Russe’s productionLe Chant du rossignol. Due to the director Diaghilev's distrust of film none of his ballets were recorded, leaving the original choreography to exist through gestures passed down from dancer to dancer, brief written accounts, rumours, the odd photo, and the artifacts left over – costumes, props and backdrops. In Costume for a Mourner a contemporary body explores the folds of a costume remade from images of the original designed by Matisse.

http://hueandcry.org.nz/artist4.html

What I learnt:

• How something that has been lost over the years can be so important - trying to receive all the information out of snippets will never give you the full story.

• Reminds me of the oral tradition of Maori and makes me wonder how much information has been lost or changed over the years because there is no concrete evidence.