ACCIDENTS NEAR MY HOUSE
2010
Robyn Base’s new sculptural installations of glass, plastics, silicon, wood and sand are compiled of fragments of wrecked cars and vehicles collected from the sites of traffic accidents around her home. Her spiralling, double-helix like sculptures are exhibited together with a number of shrine-like light boxes that engage a ‘forensic aesthetic’: a contemporary fascination with archaeological digs, crime scenes and CSI-like investigations. Lit from behind, the 2D works encourage detailed examination for clues and evidence. Every fragment is illuminated but the narrative remains elusive. The titles of the works are clinical and factual, merely stating places and dates.
As Base explains: ‘the fragments were found as I went about my normal daily business. I came across them 'by accident', and did not go looking for them. The works are not intended to be morbid nor melancholic, but quiet, humble, aiming to create harmony from chaos. I think of the geographical positioning of my house as mirrored by the locality of earth in space – a space filled with collisions of comets, asteroids, satellites, meteors, space junk and space debris. My house is the equivalent to my planet, both are witnesses to accidents and the random, haphazard-ness of life.’
As a series of reminders and a collection of incident landmarks, these works are intended to negate determinism. They are designed to forge pathways through the fall-out of random, accidental occurrences in space and time.
Amelia Douglas 2010
Curator, Red Gallery, Fitzroy Nth, Melbourne
