Presence: Mass Gallery

Jill Orr

5 - 10 Aug 2000

Performed at Mass Gallery in 2000.

The site of Mass Gallery was a foundry, which produced knives and steel tips for boots among other things. The performance took place in the virtually untouched factory area. Co-performers were Carolyn Connors, Hartley Newman, Brendon Hurley, Jason Gilchrist and myself. The work was based on the characters that had worked there and involved the opera singers and dancers in a crazy non-theatre.

The performance was a ruse where the main aim was to complete the paintings, which were exhibited in the gallery area of Mass. Each painting was an aspect of the factory space, painted with light-sensitive pigment, which enabled me to place the performers within the relevant painting and capture their shadow. The paintings seen here are partial shadow and partial painting. They are the ghostly presence imbued within the building walls.