PROJECTED PASTS

New Zealander Mike Hewson is an engineer by training, yet is about to give up his job in Australia to move back to New Zealand and pursue his artistic practices, which until now have been a sideline, full time. And it's a good thing too!
His most recent installation works are hauntingly beautiful: crisp, blue and sepia-toned photos of what was are projected onto the urban gap spaces left in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes.

At re:Start Cashel Mall, the aptly titled "View from Studio" projects what was once the outward view onto what was once the window, asking by-passers to consider a smaller moment of what was touched by the iconic Cathedral.

Nearby, the former Christchurch Normal school, which is soon to be demolished, is re-inhabited by vivid photographs of the artists who once lived and worked there. Architecturally, I am also quite enamoured with how the plywood, onto which Hewson projects, sits within the existing structures. This kind of honest approach to time and destruction, rather than merely demolishing, would make for a beautiful city. The simple material infill marks, rather than attempts to erase the pain and destruction.

You can follow Mike's work as he progresses into full-time artist  here.

THREE BATHS

Ether, 1990. 

Valley

Bath 3

'I made three bath pieces altogether. The first one was called 'Ether' and it had a plughole in it which I drilled out so that there was a hole going through the work. The second one was called 'Valley'. It had glass on top of it, where I wanted to make a space for a body, so the whole thing was like a sarcophagus. I wanted to tap the space so that it felt claustrophobic. The third one, which also had glass on it, had two holes in the glass the two  holes in the plaster, so there was a sense of breathing. I wanted it to have some kind of relief. I remember seeing a documentary about the crypt at Christ Church Spitalfields. They were clearing out lead coffins that were completely sealed, the bodies inside them had deteriorated so much that there was just this lumpy liquid sloshing about inside. And there was one big scare about unleashing the plague and other dreadful diseases. That was something I was thinking about whilst I was making these pieces. I wanted an open one, a sealed one, and one that could breathe." 

- Rachel Whiteread, interview published in William Furlong's Speaking of Art.

THE PRESENT BODY

Untitled (Cast Iron) 2001

Three thoughtful readings on Whiteread:  
1. Uros Cvoro's 'The Present body, the Absent body, and the Formless' provides a terribly lucid and necessary translation of Whiteread's work in Derridian terms. While Whiteread is typically referenced to Derrida, I have found most links shallow and the critique lacking. (We are typically given a logic somewhat along the lines of Derrida = trace = presence + absence = Whiteread).
2. Damon Hyldreth's 'The Uncanny' discusses Whiteread in Freudian terms based on the double.
3. Doreen Massey's 'Space-time and the Politics of Location' discusses how 'House' functions in social terms.