Architecture of the South (2014)
shown in the exhibition, Slavery and Freedom in Savannah, Jepson Centre, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia, USA February 8 - August 31, 2014. This important and ground breaking exhibition, recognizing the history of enslavement in Savannah, won an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).
While ornament is encoded with history it is also capable of masking it. In Savannah, there is a focus on heritage through the popular but select reading of the city’s historical decoration and architecture. The limitations of this reading reveal the omissions and distortions; a White mythology. Irwin-Zarecka notes that when stories remain untold ‘there are strong indications indeed of a past confined to oblivion’[1]. Through a series of layers of architectural imagery these shawls mimic this contemporary process of misrepresentation and screening, and subtly record other markings within the architectural environment; marks less noted but of primary significance. These markings include a rubbing of the decorative pattern of airholes in the lower floor of the First African Baptist Church, built by the enslaved, and a site of the Underground Railroad. These holes were drilled in the format of a diamond-shaped Congo Cosmogram, and while essentially serving as a conductor of fresh air to those hiding below, the marks themselves attracted no special attention from slave owners, being seen as familiar and inconsequential decoration associated with prayer and meditation.
Also included are rubbings of whip marks found on two trees in Laurel Grove South Cemetery, the site of one of the earliest plantations in Savannah, and later a segregated burial ground for slaves and free people of colour.
The inclusion of these marks – a rubbing in rather than an erasure - addresses architecture as a social, political and economic structure, and provides a more lucid reading of Savannah’s history in the 18th and 19th centuries. The architectural decoration is represented by Asher Benjamin’s 1839 drawings[2]. Benjamin was the first American architect to contribute pattern books as a comprehensive builder’s guide; until then most builders had relied on pattern books from Britain to reproduce popular styles for their wealthy clients. In The Builder’s Guide, from which these drawings are taken, Benjamin focused on the popular Greek Revival style which prevails throughout much of historic Savannah. It was a style associated with classical tradition, civic virtue and democracy and was very popular in the South, particularly for plantation houses and estates. White painted wood simulated the marble of ancient Greece.
The notion of concealment is central to the work. The white foreground layering of Benjamin’s architectural drawings of decorative facades, consoles and ceiling centerpieces parodies the present concentration on elegant and elaborate ornament and acts as a distraction or mask for what lies underneath. Concealment also references African American processes of survival and solidarity during the antebellum period – clandestine meetings, hidden spaces, the use of language and visual culture to impart information. The inversion of the rubbings gives positive form to the marks, but their transparency and faintness suggest their near invisibility; like ghosts or wraiths, they hover in the background, haunting the grandeur of Benjamin’s spaces.
The composition of these shawls is based on the Kashmir shawls of the early 19th century, a sign of wealth for the European and American women who wore them, and a symbol of Western colonial power. This work constructs an historical framework which focuses the notion of Irwin- Zarecka’s ‘social forgetting’; it offers the viewer the opportunity to look past the popular icons of cultural remembrance to the darker, more silent spaces beneath.
© Jill Kinnear 2010
References:
[1] Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, pp 13-14.
[2] Benjamin, A. 1839, The Works of Asher Benjamin; VI The Builder’s Guide, 1974 reprint of the 1839 edition, Da Capo Press, New York.
Acknowledgements:
Benjamin, Asher, 1830, The Architect or Practical House Carpenter, republished by Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 1988.
Benjamin, Asher, 1839, The Builder’s Guide, republished by Da Capo Press, Inc, New York, New York.
This project was funded through a Presidential Fellowship for Faculty Development from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
shown in the exhibition, Slavery and Freedom in Savannah, Jepson Centre, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia, USA February 8 - August 31, 2014. This important and ground breaking exhibition, recognizing the history of enslavement in Savannah, won an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).
While ornament is encoded with history it is also capable of masking it. In Savannah, there is a focus on heritage through the popular but select reading of the city’s historical decoration and architecture. The limitations of this reading reveal the omissions and distortions; a White mythology. Irwin-Zarecka notes that when stories remain untold ‘there are strong indications indeed of a past confined to oblivion’[1]. Through a series of layers of architectural imagery these shawls mimic this contemporary process of misrepresentation and screening, and subtly record other markings within the architectural environment; marks less noted but of primary significance. These markings include a rubbing of the decorative pattern of airholes in the lower floor of the First African Baptist Church, built by the enslaved, and a site of the Underground Railroad. These holes were drilled in the format of a diamond-shaped Congo Cosmogram, and while essentially serving as a conductor of fresh air to those hiding below, the marks themselves attracted no special attention from slave owners, being seen as familiar and inconsequential decoration associated with prayer and meditation.
Also included are rubbings of whip marks found on two trees in Laurel Grove South Cemetery, the site of one of the earliest plantations in Savannah, and later a segregated burial ground for slaves and free people of colour.
The inclusion of these marks – a rubbing in rather than an erasure - addresses architecture as a social, political and economic structure, and provides a more lucid reading of Savannah’s history in the 18th and 19th centuries. The architectural decoration is represented by Asher Benjamin’s 1839 drawings[2]. Benjamin was the first American architect to contribute pattern books as a comprehensive builder’s guide; until then most builders had relied on pattern books from Britain to reproduce popular styles for their wealthy clients. In The Builder’s Guide, from which these drawings are taken, Benjamin focused on the popular Greek Revival style which prevails throughout much of historic Savannah. It was a style associated with classical tradition, civic virtue and democracy and was very popular in the South, particularly for plantation houses and estates. White painted wood simulated the marble of ancient Greece.
The notion of concealment is central to the work. The white foreground layering of Benjamin’s architectural drawings of decorative facades, consoles and ceiling centerpieces parodies the present concentration on elegant and elaborate ornament and acts as a distraction or mask for what lies underneath. Concealment also references African American processes of survival and solidarity during the antebellum period – clandestine meetings, hidden spaces, the use of language and visual culture to impart information. The inversion of the rubbings gives positive form to the marks, but their transparency and faintness suggest their near invisibility; like ghosts or wraiths, they hover in the background, haunting the grandeur of Benjamin’s spaces.
The composition of these shawls is based on the Kashmir shawls of the early 19th century, a sign of wealth for the European and American women who wore them, and a symbol of Western colonial power. This work constructs an historical framework which focuses the notion of Irwin- Zarecka’s ‘social forgetting’; it offers the viewer the opportunity to look past the popular icons of cultural remembrance to the darker, more silent spaces beneath.
© Jill Kinnear 2010
References:
[1] Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, pp 13-14.
[2] Benjamin, A. 1839, The Works of Asher Benjamin; VI The Builder’s Guide, 1974 reprint of the 1839 edition, Da Capo Press, New York.
Acknowledgements:
Benjamin, Asher, 1830, The Architect or Practical House Carpenter, republished by Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 1988.
Benjamin, Asher, 1839, The Builder’s Guide, republished by Da Capo Press, Inc, New York, New York.
This project was funded through a Presidential Fellowship for Faculty Development from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Architecture of the South, shawls 1, 2 and 3. Digitally printed with acid dye onto silk crepe de chine, each shawl is double-sided, 297cm long x 61cm wide (117” x 24”), with 3cm fringes at either end.
Architecture of the South, shawl 3, detail.
Architecture of the South, shawl 1, detail.
Diaspora: textiles as paradox (2008)
Diaspora; textiles as paradox is about the experience of migrant dislocation. The exhibition draws on Jill Kinnear’s personal experience of migration from Scotland to Australia and how the myths and memories of migratory experience and the journey between these geographical extremes become analogies for the ‘third space’. The transitory (and transient) character of the journey becomes the homeland, the place between the points of departure and arrival, a place of hybrid cross-cultural response, compromise and innovation. As a printed textile designer Kinnear is particularly interested in the role of textiles as a cultural signifier of history, place and identity. As an emigrant Scot, she is interested in the role that traditional Scottish textiles, paisleys, and in particular, tartans, have played in the construction of a Scottish identity and mythology, and how tartan imagery has migrated along with its mythologies to every corner of the world.
The textiles in this exhibition originated from constructions of tartans and paisleys in steel, aluminium and other metal elements. These units were transported to the departure lounge at Brisbane International Airport and passed through the baggage x-ray machine. The unique colour and characteristics of these x-ray images are retained and reconfigured as a vibrant collection of tartans and paisleys in silk, cotton and wool. Reminiscent of her own Scottish textile heritage but physically transformed by the process of present day travel, the designs are traces of transition; fragile maps of a place between two points. Layers of meaning further reveal the collection as specifically responding to Scottish social history and mythology, placing it within the blurred boundaries between art, craft and design.
All photos unless otherwise noted: Don Hildred Photographics
The original three 'Steel Tartan' structures, aluminium bar, steel wire, nailgun nails, steel wool, reinforcement mesh and silver foil. Each structure 55cm x 55cm.
'Workshop of the Empire dresses', featuring 'Steel tartan' textile designs, digitally printed onto silk georgette and silk shantung.
Jill Kinnear x-raying one of the 'Steel Tartan' structures at Brisbane International Airport.
Just three of the x-rays of the original 'Steel Tartan' structures. The different settings of the machine offered numerous options.
'Chivalry dress 1', featuring 'Diaspora tartan 3' textile design and co-ordinate, airport baggage x-ray imagery digitally printed onto silk sateen and silk crepe de chine. Photo: Cindy Laine
'Chivlary dress 2', featuring 'Diaspora tartan 6' textile design and co-ordinate, airport baggage x-ray imagery digitally printed onto silk crepe de chine and silk shantung. Photo: Cindy Laine
'Famine/Exodus dress', from a photogram design of a 'Steel Tartan' structure, digitally printed onto wool delaine.
'Lasercut Paisley' structure in layers of aluminium and steel, 64cm x 54cm. The design features an Australian grevillea.
'Steel Paisley Shawl', from photographs of a section of the 'Lasercut Paisley', digitally printed onto silk shantung, 303cm x 62cm, with 45cm handmade shantung fringes.
Airport baggage x-rays of the 'Lasercut Paisley' structure.
'Diaspora Paisley 1 Shawl', airport baggage x-ray design from 'Lasercut Paisley' structure, digitally printed onto silk crepe de chine, 275cm x 66cm.
'Diaspora Paisley 2 Shawl', airport baggage x-ray design from 'Lasercut Paisley' structure, digitally printed onto silk crepe de chine, 293.5cm x 71cm.
'Diaspora Paisley 3 Shawl', airport baggage x-ray design from 'Lasercut Paisley' structure, digitally printed onto silk crepe de chine, 285.5cm x 70cm.
'Diaspora: textiles as paradox' was a part PhD submission to the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Jill Kinnear gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the following organisations: The University of Southern Queensland; the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, Australia Council; Visions Australia; Arts Queensland; the Regional Arts Development Fund; the Public Memory Research Centre of the University of Southern Queensland; the Jean Clarice Searle Research Award, USQ; the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
Extraordinary Discretion (2004)
Jill Kinnear was one of 10 artists commissioned by the Toowoomba Regional Council to provide artwork which contributed stories of the city for a centennial celebratory exhibition in 2004. Kinnear focused on education, researching the history of St Saviour's school in Toowoomba, which was established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1873. Her extensive research revealed the impoverished circumstances in which the Sisters worked; devoid of all other sources of funding they relied on income from piano lessons. Aside from their handwriting in the first cashbook recording the purchase and transport of the piano to Toowoomba, Kinnear found no other record of the women themselves; their silence, literally imposed upon them by the Bishop, seemed absolute. Consequently Kinnear used the felts of old pianos, the elements of the instrument which silence its mechanism, to construct the artwork.
All photos: Don Hildred Photographics
Three panels of the 'Pianissimo' series, each approximately 40cm x 40cm, old ebony and ivory keys, hammer butt felts, rail punchings, camper felts, hammer rail felts, dampers.
'Pianissimo 4', 27cm x 80.5cm, off set rails, rail punchings.
'Sotto Voce (barely audible)', 17cm x 306cm, 18 individual panels with hammer butt felts, key felts, rail punchings, backcheck felts, camper felts, camper springs, hammer rail felts, ebony keys, ivory tops, dampers.
Detail of 'Sotto Voce (barely audible)', above.
Detail of 'Sotto Voce (barely audible)'.
Detail of 'Sotto Voce (barely audible)'.
The exhibition, Extraordinary Discretion is held in the permanent collection of the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
The Ratio of Distance; mapping the landscape in drawings and textiles (1999 - 2001)
The Ratio of Distance describes a three-month journey Kinnear made in 1998 from Brisbane to the central Australian desert, and parallels the experience with her subsequent journey in the studio translating her visual diary of drawings into 6-metre lengths of screenprinted textiles. The surfaces of land, paper and fabric, and the analytical mapping of their relationship, provides a unique and intimate view of central Australian landscape. The following images are selected from this large exhibition.
All photos unless otherwise noted: Don Hildred
Catalogue cover for 'The Ratio of Distance' exhibition, showing 'The Thomson River by Satellite' hand printed textile with an aerial view of Western Queensland channel country.
'Uluru', gouache on paper, from Kinnear's visual diary.
'Uluru', gouache on paper, from Kinnear's visual diary.
'Red-tailed black cockatoo', gouache on paper, from Kinnear's visual diary.
'Cross-cut saw', gouache on watercolour paper.
Cross-cut saw', four-colour design, hand screen-printed onto cotton sateen, 140cm x 600cm.
'Circular saw', five-colour design hand screen-printed onto cotton sateen, 140cm x 600cm.
'Circular saw cushion', four-colour design, hand-screen printed onto cotton sateen.
'Channel country by satellite', gouache on paper. Kinnear recorded in her visual diary the memory of seeing an image of channel country on a computer screen.
'The Thomson River by Satellite' two lengths of a five-colour design hand screen-printed onto cotton sateen, 120cm x 600cm. Photo: Michael Sankey
The Ratio of Distance: mapping the landscape in drawings and textiles was a part MVA submission to the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Jill Kinnear gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the following organisations: The University of Southern Queensland; Arts Queensland; the Regional Arts Development Fund; the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery.
