MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
A: There are a number of key intentions woven through the exhibition. Perhaps the foremost is to create a thought-provoking presentation which can help us to discover new things about the world we live in. Together these artworks give us an opportunity to see the familiar in new ways – to bring us alive to new connections and possibilities.
I am also interested in presenting strong and interesting works. I try to offer local audiences the opportunity to see artwork by Australian artists alongside their international peers. I am always learning from the artists and artworks I am exposed to. Closest at hand are the works in the Monash University
Collection. Through my work at MUMA I am able to think about these works over a period of time – they help me clarify the structure of the exhibition. As well as presenting strong and engaging works by established artists, I am also keen to try and create opportunities for younger, emerging artists to exhibit.
These broader intentions sit above the specifi c thematic aims of Liquid Archive . For the exhibition my key interests were: to look at changing notions of the archive, how we record larger histories as well as our own personal experiences; to think about time and memory; to think about different artistic processes and how they can offer new insights into the world around us; as well as to try and open up and investigate the use of the word archive, which has become something of a buzz-word in contemporary visual art.
Ground Floor, Building F
Monash University, Caulfi eld Campus
900 Dandenong Road
Caulfi eld East VIC 3145 Australia www.monash.edu.au/muma
Telephone +61 3 9905 4217 muma@monash.edu
Tues – Fri 10am – 5pm; Sat 12 – 5pm
[The User], Quartet for Dot matrix printers
2004 (installation view)
Photo: John Brash

MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
A: Most of the artworks presented in Liquid Archive existed before the exhibition came into being, and so most of the invited artists were only able to respond to the theme by accepting or declining the invitation to exhibit. Works were also selected from the Monash University Collection.
Patrick Pound was an exception. His artwork The Museum of Air was developed for the exhibition and MUMA’s central corridor space. I am really pleased with his work, he is presenting just two small aspects of his larger collecting life, but I feel they open up a sense of the logic of collecting, as well as idiosyncratic aspects of the process. His work focuses on images and objects representing air and wind, which are beautifully insubstantial, an interesting contrast to the physical tactile nature of the objects he assembles.
Zoe Croggan’s work was also selected for its connection both to archives and to the idea of liquidity. I offered her the opportunity to make new work for the exhibition, but as it turned out the new work was heading in a slightly different direction, it was also about the body, but in relation to architecture rather than the landscape or water as is the case with the works in the exhibition, so we went with those she had already prepared.
In many other cases, we see examples of artists employing archival strategies, or introducing new things into archival histories.
A: The artists from [The User], Thomas McIntosh and Emmanuel Medan, spent the longest amount of time in the gallery during the installation process. It took them four days to set up their work, but then Emmanuel, who is more the composer in the duo, spent a number of days re-working and tweaking the sound mix for the Quartet for dot matrix printers . I see this as like a conductor having time to fi ne tune the way his orchestra works.
Patrick Pound spent about three days in the exhibition space and helped to build the timber and cardboard display structure. Zoe Croggan spent a few hours in the space, looking at the proposed spacing and fi nal hang of her work. Tom Nicholson and Kit Wise also spent a few hours in the space.
With each of these artists, as well as others based overseas, we talked about how we were proposing to hang and locate their work. Some artists such as
Zineb Sedira and [The User] provided us with detailed instructions about equipment required, minimum room dimensions and other display parameters.
A: For an exhibition like Liquid Archive I work against chronology and instead try to create a rich sense of space through colour, ideas and form. The empty white space or breathing space is also important in how works are placed.
A key determinant in the arrangement of artworks in Liquid Archive was the desire to isolate works with sound from each other. I was also interested in creating a sense of arrival, so the fi rst room you enter after leaving the corridor, sets up some of the key dialogues within the exhibition.
I hope to weave ideas together, so that there is a sense of something unfolding, as visitors move through the space. In this regard I have separated artworks with a similar aesthetic or thematic register so that key ideas are threaded throughout the exhibition rather than being clustered together. For instance there are certain works with a haunting quality, which I felt if grouped together might be less effective: Joyce Campbell, Leah-King Smith and Nicola Loder. There is also a thematic and colour similarity between the Broomberg & Chanarin works and the Bashir Baraki photographs within the exhibition. I separated these artworks so that the smaller Baraki photographs didn’t seem swallowed up by the monumental scale of the Broomberg & Chanarin print. I hope that by coming upon the Baraki works in the next room there is a sense of recognition, pattern and repetition.
Some of the considerations for arrangement of artworks in the exhibition also play out in the layout of images within the exhibition catalogue: colour rhythms, the weave of ideas, repetition and separation. I often see the catalogue as a test run for the exhibition. The two formats will always be different, but they are each a version of an underlying spirit or logic of ideas.
Ground Floor, Building F
Monash University, Caulfi eld Campus
900 Dandenong Road
Caulfi eld East VIC 3145 Australia www.monash.edu.au/muma
Telephone +61 3 9905 4217 muma@monash.edu
Tues – Fri 10am – 5pm; Sat 12 – 5pm
Patrick Pound, The museum of air
2012 (installation view)
Photo: John Brash

MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
A: A key priority was to separate works with sound from each other. This was achieved through the construction of artifi cial walls within the galleries. There is still some sound spill, but I hope it enhances the experience of the exhibition, and the play of relationships between the works.
Colour was another consideration. I was also interested to spread out works which were all black and white, locating works with colour at key points throughout the show.
In some spaces I wanted to create moments of drama and excitement, such as when you look across the fi rst gallery and see the black wall which Joyce
Campbell’s work is located on.
I also wanted to contrast the intense volume of Patrick Pound’s material in the central corridor with the apparently empty space in the light-well gallery where
Xochitl Rivera Navarette’s work is presented – as invisibility and the problems of representation are a key theme of the exhibition.
Ground Floor, Building F
Monash University, Caulfi eld Campus
900 Dandenong Road
Caulfi eld East VIC 3145 Australia
Top: Adam Broomberg and Oliver
Chanarin
Left wall: The Day Nobody Died 2008
Right wall: The Brother’s Suicide,
June 08 2008 2008 (installation view)
Photo: John Brash
Bottom:
Left wall: Zoe Croggan, Halves 2011-12
Right wall: Joyce Campbell, Te Taniwha
2012-12
(installation view)
Photo: John Brash