with Lisa Radford
State of the unions, Ian Potter Museum of Art (curated by Jacqueline Doughty) 2018
Performance, 8 minutes 8 seconds, looped, white sail, printed ticker tape, brass Zulu flag. Performed by Chloe Martin and Tref Gare with dramaturgy assistance from Rinske Ginsberg
The script and performance developed with Lisa Radford in and from conversation with Danielle O’Brien (a Webb dock-sitter) and Josh Bornstein (lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who developed a legal strategy for the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA)) in reference to the 1998 Union dispute. The script refers to the actions of the union members and their families but also those that sat beside them. Influenced by the social and political actions of artists such as Ian Burn, Danielle sat at Webb dock in solidarity collecting signatures from the stevedores and their family members with the intention of making a quilt. The quilt never eventuated. Lisa Radford’s work Furniture Painting (Danielle’s MUA) is a painting referent sitting beside the readymade quilt remnant belonging to Danielle.
They could say love riffs-off the history of abstraction by arranging a collection of flags from the international signal code for shipping which could only be read by the sailors (workers) and teachers of the code from a painting made by Lisa and Sam reading We can say love. The past-tense phrasing renders this new work both a celebration of what was achieved by the MUA in 1998, but is also a lament to unionism and solidarity of this time.
samgeorgesam.com 