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Rosie H. Cook

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Asialink+AsiaSoc.23March(1)

2017 Asialink Arts Residency

Crazed Puppets 04  Crazed Puppets

bundengan-01 This is not a Kowangan

aptccarn5 #APTCCARN5

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「愛犬」”The Beloved Dog” by Yu Fang, 1962, oil on canvas. From the opening today of Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum’s 25th anniversary exhibition, “The South as a Place of Gathering”. From the artist’s statement: “In 1962, the works of Monet, Cézanne, and Picasso gave me a great influence, and this work was produced... The dog is sick, the children are distressed, giving care, and the pity of the scene is in harmony with the painting, so it is made into a sketch. Later, on the day of the exhibition, I was surprised by the fact that Monet’s “Breakfast” impressionist style was compared with me.”
#Repost @whatisbundengan is happening this weekend and it’s AMAZING!!! ・・・ Acara resmi dibuka dengan alunan tembang dari Pak Undung @kemdikbud.ri diiringi petikan Bundengan dari Pak Munir dan Pak Buhori. Ngabean malam ini disulap jadi syahdu, Den! #whatisbundengan #wib2019 #ngabean #bundengan #berceritadalamkesederhanaan
My sister just sent me this photo of me (future conservator mixing paints in a lab coat?) knowing me, trying to colour-match a nice teal-green 😂. @katherinedavid7187 will be able to tell me what year/how old I was, based on hair colour and dummy I would guess 3 or 4 maybe? #quelleartiste
Setting up studio number 3! I’m very grateful that I’ve been allocated a room next to the storage area so I can work more efficiently... instead of having to move the hundred or so textiles I’m cleaning for this project back and forth to my already overflowing studio the other side of campus! I will be working on other projects in my own studio in the mornings when the light is better, then afternoons here, and then one day a week at the National Science Museum — here’s hoping I don’t lose any of my favourite tools along the way! #conservator #thisisconservation #rosiesallwhites
Today’s procrastination in between writing sessions comes in the shape of “Imazighen: The vanishing traditions of Berber women”, by Margaret Courtney-Clarke and Geraldine Brooks (technically research because of the relationship of nomadic peoples to landscape...). I originally was drawn to the Berber weaving traditions, but I’m so infatuated with the pottery I had to share some photos with their captions. This book was published in 1996, and it’s interesting to think how much must have changed over the past 23 years, for better or for worse. I am guilty of being irritated by coffee table books documenting “ethnic tribes” à la “Before they are gone”. But thinking today about how I might approach such a project myself — the documentation of endangered cultural practices — I am grateful for the changes that technology brings. Yes, mobile phones might spoil the visual effect of photos, but how wonderful to be able to immediately share the photos taken, and to be able to continue the conversations started with the people you encounter after any kind of “fieldwork” visit so that your documentation is part of their story, and returns to them, and is also just a small part of their own documentation of their story. How important also to re-adjust one’s own positionality as a researcher or photographer, and acknowledge who we are and the role we play, how we are perceived and the impact of our interactions within other communities. To be clear: I have no specific criticisms directed at the authors, and I’m glad they have documented and shared their four years of work. I am just grateful to be enabled by technology and contemporary approaches to cultural heritage conservation. #berber #conservator #textiles #worldcultures #pottery #berberwomen
I *swear* on my ancient, decrepit, many-times-brought-back-from-the-dead MacBook Air, that this is the last piece of conservation research I ever write. On it. This year. Why do I KEEP writing papers and presentations? The agony... hopefully this is my last deadline of 2019. Shout out to #absolutehumiditybook by @tessmaunder... and also can you spot the #bundengan (hint: hidden in the batik). #thisisconservation #homeoffice #procrastinators
DELICIOUS! What a result cleaning silk upholstery with polyurethane make-up sponge (after first using the brush vacuum technique!). The interns I am working with were blown away to discover the glossy gold and brown silk underneath thick grey dust. Posted with kind permission of my colleague Mr Tiger Wu, Head of Conservation at the National Science Museum, where I am currently working and supervising interns on textiles projects one day a week. #textileconservation #textiles #conservator #upholsteryconservation #furnitureconservation #thisisconservation #silk #oddlysatisfying #powerwashingporn #glowup
Today I’m at the National Science Museum and during my lunch break I was able to attend a session on “Communications between Conservators and Museums” at the 2019 International Conference on Contemporary Challenges for Museums”. I also bumped into Mathew Trinca, the keynote speaker and Director of the National Museum of Australia, who was surprised to hear I am also Australian (I still don’t have a real Australian accent!). Back to work now! #rosielovesteal
Today I made a mini sewing table with windows, based on the one we were shown at the Japanese Textiles Conservation Course in August (seen top and bottom in following photos). The windows pop in and out and slide around as needed. Super handy for accessing the middle of large, fragile textiles! #textilesconservation #conservator #sewing #DIY
Most of the time I can’t believe how fast time passes. But here I’m astonished to discover it has only been 4 years since I worked in Guizhou, China, for a company doing the multimedia exhibitions for the launch of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was such a bizarre time in my life (and I have had some bizarre times), and utterly miserable — working from dawn to midnight, often for 30 days straight, and then heading back to Melbourne for a few days before turning around and going back to China — all set in the most astonishing beautiful landscapes, with the site access requiring 1.5+ hour of hiking up steep mountains. But I didn’t suffer anywhere near as much as the local populations. I learned so much about the cruel bureaucracy of bargaining for World Heritage Site status, and witnessed the local people chased out of their ancestral homes (whether by money, coercion, brute force, or simply by running bulldozers over their homes), just to meet the UNESCO zoning standards. Everything was rushed and angry and sometimes scary — from the unsafe building practices where a wrong step would see you falling down a cliff, to the Director of the Department for Propaganda censoring our exhibition content over and over yet refusing to give us an official version. I cannot believe this was just 4 years ago — so much has happened since. I’m so lucky to live in Taiwan, and yet China looms again on the horizon, threatening and violent from Xinjiang to Hong Kong.
I couldn’t be there in person but I got to watch my wonderful smart James graduate via livestream from my desk at work! I am so proud of him and his official status as Master of Humanitarian Assistance ✅ 👨‍🎓 #deakinuniversity
Not quite 50 shades of grey but the 9th shade (2.2) was the right one! There’s not a huge amount of difference at first glance (especially if looking at just one layer!) but the right tone of browny-grey coloured net melts very discretely into the faded grey wool it will be supporting. I have tons of this sickly-coloured netting (the “original” swatch) and it seems to take up my new Lanaset dyes nicely, which is great news! #conservator #textileconservation #conservationdyes #conservationdyeing #lanaset #netting #textiles #dyeing
On dyeing in the tropics 🌴 yesterday was my first time doing conservation acid dyeing “by myself” (supported by the very talented textile researcher and artist Eloise Rapp @rapprapp — you should see her beautiful Instagram account which is how I met her!). My previous experiences involved professional dyeing machines, which allows you to set temperatures and times very precisely (eg. heat to 75C over 10 minutes, hold at 75C for 10 minutes, raise to 80C over 10 minutes, hold at 80C for 30 minutes...). Instead we had to juggle between two hot plates, neither of which had precise temperature settings, and use both a traditional thermometer and an infrared thermometer, constantly tweaking the heat up and down, stirring all the while. I won’t see the dried results until Monday when I’m back at work, but it was a great experiment in dyeing nylon net for the first time and working out all my processes and equipment! Thanks Eloise for all your help and assistance, despite conservation dyeing being quite a different experience compared to the sustainable natural dye practice you are developing! (And of course thanks for the photos!) #textileconservation #conservationdyeing #lanaset #conservationdyes
It’s only 8:30 and I’ve already had so many creepy-crawly friends to deal with... first when I was cycling to work a turtle (a Taiwanese pond slider!) that kept trying to cross a VERY busy road (in the end I had to grab it and chuck it over into the grass, it would not have lasted a minute in rush hour traffic!). And then this buddy crawled out of nowhere and is now awaiting inspection by the pest experts upstairs! 🐢 🕷
Back to work, taking consolation in the various @auverasoie silk threads and ribbons I picked up in France (and some YLI silk ribbons, and some no-name, bargain, 50% off silk ribbons!). These silk threads are much thicker than I would usually use but I couldn’t resist the range of neutral, discrete colours. Silk ribbons are really useful for supporting very small holes, slits or tears, because they don’t require hemming along 2 sides! #textileconservation #conservator #silk #auverasoie
Goodbye Nantes, and my precious sestra @bindweedmind, seen here standing in front of the building where she used to live as a student. What a doorway! She doesn’t miss the 4 flights of narrow winding stone steps though.
I chose this Hornsea Pottery mug for my breakfast tea — it’s a favourite of my grandmother’s and my mother remembers it from her childhood in the 60s or 70s 🧜‍♀️ #rosielovesteal #hornseapottery
For his tapestries, Lurçat worked with a limited palette of 44 colours of wool. He would draw his cartoons back-to-front, and rarely used gouache to colour them, instead numbering them according to his prepared set of dyes wools. Here you can see 1) a painted detail of the cartoon, 2) the full cartoon with primarily numbers for colour references, and 3) the resulting tapestry. Such skill to be able to envision the work in his mind — almost like a digital camera which then sends the information to the “lissiers” — the weavers — to interpret the encoded information and produce Lurçat’s vision. #tapestry #tapisserie #jeanlurcat #jeanlurçat
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