https://mariablackwell.com Maria Blackwell Sat, 10 Feb 2024 03:27:47 +0000 https://mariablackwell.com en https://mariablackwell.com/Sonic-Double Sat, 10 Feb 2024 03:27:47 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Sonic-Double Sonic Double Moonah Arts Centre, 2024 2 person show with Claudine Arendt <img width="1089" height="3719" width_o="1089" height_o="3719" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/59825b020323010f22923f7016e77ca4f445f630f258a4b815097e069fcf1071/IMG-7689.jpg" data-mid="204932460" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/59825b020323010f22923f7016e77ca4f445f630f258a4b815097e069fcf1071/IMG-7689.jpg" /> Andrew Harper. The&nbsp;Mercury Weekend, Feb 2024 <img width="3088" height="2056" width_o="3088" height_o="2056" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/61c47784959ac70785f5e0f32464bf299bc4c5278247be452a1cac2e62bdb928/_MG_0875.JPG" data-mid="204325679" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/61c47784959ac70785f5e0f32464bf299bc4c5278247be452a1cac2e62bdb928/_MG_0875.JPG" /> <img width="2056" height="3088" width_o="2056" height_o="3088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1cc6c9aea3bafff050b93b95691276ced3505c031fa7ffb2c5f89daa03439105/_MG_0883.JPG" data-mid="204325681" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1cc6c9aea3bafff050b93b95691276ced3505c031fa7ffb2c5f89daa03439105/_MG_0883.JPG" /> <img width="2056" height="3088" width_o="2056" height_o="3088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4011ca2fa319ad9fd62554e63b5cae1ab72b447130fcebeb6e5b7eec6de07f00/_MG_0894.JPG" data-mid="204325682" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4011ca2fa319ad9fd62554e63b5cae1ab72b447130fcebeb6e5b7eec6de07f00/_MG_0894.JPG" /> <img width="4322" height="6158" width_o="4322" height_o="6158" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ea8a1c22725d17515b6e69755ba1cc28debac4835bf1c044bfcdef72dc51492/IMG_0450.JPG" data-mid="204325687" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8ea8a1c22725d17515b6e69755ba1cc28debac4835bf1c044bfcdef72dc51492/IMG_0450.JPG" /> <img width="4640" height="6544" width_o="4640" height_o="6544" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/adce0131ff14b8177f9b2f74d3954dc1e51a82047150c2032d83c2271b943d6b/IMG_0474.JPG" data-mid="204325692" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/adce0131ff14b8177f9b2f74d3954dc1e51a82047150c2032d83c2271b943d6b/IMG_0474.JPG" /> <img width="4000" height="6000" width_o="4000" height_o="6000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c7cbe0b01e872035d3234fcb8c78589531561d91552c9cd905569d92decb0bda/IMG_8072.jpeg" data-mid="204325697" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c7cbe0b01e872035d3234fcb8c78589531561d91552c9cd905569d92decb0bda/IMG_8072.jpeg" /> <img width="5414" height="3841" width_o="5414" height_o="3841" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/280291d9b2fb4b3dc530091dbb84e7825a21c78ee0b367ce8d2b4fb542169d76/IMG_8073.jpeg" data-mid="204325691" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/280291d9b2fb4b3dc530091dbb84e7825a21c78ee0b367ce8d2b4fb542169d76/IMG_8073.jpeg" /> <img width="3088" height="2056" width_o="3088" height_o="2056" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/639d762fedae09f4c09646a05985d66fe03f43e51f7bfe932d0e17f191ee5e02/_MG_0920.JPG" data-mid="204325685" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/639d762fedae09f4c09646a05985d66fe03f43e51f7bfe932d0e17f191ee5e02/_MG_0920.JPG" /> https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Info-Template-copy Sun, 28 Jan 2024 04:26:09 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Info-Template-copy One evening around 2014, on a train from Melbourne Central to Lilydale, my dad stood up in a reasonably full carriage and announced he was going to sing a song for everyone in honour of St Patricks day. He closed his eyes and tried to communicate the soul of the song to insular commuters. Everyone pretty much ignored him. I knew he wasn’t doing it for attention, nor aware he could be annoying people - he would have seen it as a public service. He lived alone in the big city, and missed the ritual of sharing old stories through song. He wanted to let the commuters in on the tradition. I cringed with embarrassment, though a small part of me felt endeared, remembering how in a different time and place I would have been taken away by the story in the song. Growing up in Ireland, my family, and all the families I knew would sing at gatherings where drink was involved. Christmases, weddings, christenings, funerals, parties; when there was nothing left to chat about, songs were sung by one person at a time, acapella, as everyone listened. It didn’t matter if you had a nice singing voice (though it was a bonus), if you wanted to share asong, you sang. Many didn’t sing, but everyone listened. It was usually old Irish folk songs, though sometimes popular tunes of the time, whatever the mood brought. But people listened more intently to the old songs. They had layers of ancestral weight, communicating stories of grief, rebellion, resilience and love passed along through history. People had ‘their’ song, or a collection of them, earned through repeated performing over the years, like a touchstone weaving significant times together. After a person passed away, you could sing their song to honour their memory, or it could become your song, if you were close enough to have inherited it. Often people would introduce it by saying, for example, “this was my mother’s song”. My dad lived and worked overseas as there wasn’t much employment at home. His rare visits were the highlights of our childhood. I remember hearing him sing at the tail end of the welcome home gatherings, or sometimes through the thin ceiling/floor as I lay in bed at night. Last year he died alone in Melbourne. It was sudden, and difficult to integrate mentally. He was always somewhere far away, now he is nowhere. Even with his body laid out, in the private moments to say goodbye, we sang to him. My brothers and I, and then my sister over the phone from Ireland, held up by my brother's trembling hand. When clearing out his unit, I found recordings on his phone - rough voice notes of him singing by himself. It occurred to me this was the end of another layer of familial generation, and the songs have been passed along. It’s striking to me how the voice can hold all the familiarity of a fully formed human, a loved human. When listening it’s as though they are present again, mysteriously embodied in the vibrations and tones. I felt compelled to add my voice to the recordings, with subtle layers to support and uplift his voice (kind of like a hug through song). Harmonies don’t come naturally to me. I find it incredibly difficult to turn my attention from the dominant melody, like a main road I’ve travelled too many times, and it keeps drawing me back as I try to carve out the laneways and backstreets to take a parallel journey. Much like the journey of grief, it requires me to hold the memory without ever looking for it in reality; a simultaneous focus and letting go. It’s a delicate balance, and very easy to put a foot wrong, to clash and create dissonance. There's a satisfaction to achieving the harmony - the sense of resolve, a ringing vibration that seems to regenerate the air around it. Creating harmony with the voice of one lost has been a balm for the grief. I vaguely planned to visit the Cliffs of Dooneen next time I’m in Ireland. I searched for where they may be found, though it seems ambiguous. According to one scholar, the cliffs in the song are not a physical place but ‘to be found in the mists of myth and nostalgia’. I may never get to the cliffs, but I can sing my dad’s song and continue weaving the layers. – Avondale (Dominic Behan) is about the birthplace of Charles Stuart Parnell, a revered Irish politician from the 1800s. Only Her Rivers Run Free (Mickey MacConnell) laments the struggle for freedom and vitality under foreign occupation. The Cliffs of Dooneen (Traditional/Jack McAuliffe) recounts love and nostalgia for one's homeland, from the perspective of a migrant. Special Thank You to Richie Cuskelly and Harry Bird for their assistance with harmonising and recording. https://mariablackwell.com/First-Page-Template-copy Fri, 24 Sep 2021 07:33:16 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/First-Page-Template-copy Rare Sunlit Water &nbsp; Project SpaceContemporary Art Tasmania, 2021 ︎︎︎ https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Info-Template-copy Sat, 09 Oct 2021 08:49:26 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Info-Template-copy https://mariablackwell.com/Rare-Sunlit-Water-text Tue, 01 Nov 2022 05:16:51 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Rare-Sunlit-Water-text Before covid, every year I would return home. At the end of a 2 day journey through the sky, I would see the shoreline. 2 chimney towers on the coast would anchor my bearings; built in 1971, they stand just under 208 metres tall. They are the tallest human made structures in the country. Growing up I viewed them from a 2 kilometre pier. My grandmother would take us for walks there as children. As an adult, every time I return home, I retrace my steps along the pier. 2 kilometres walking, walking, walking, only out to sea. There are many concrete landmarks along the way. I used to take them at face value- solid&nbsp;joyous seaside furniture. Now they are brutalist structures, painted spearmint green. I think of childhood friends. So many young people emigrated, often to Australia. I wonder if&nbsp;they struggle to accept their new identity in colonised lands. I wonder do they visit this&nbsp;place when they return home. At the end of our walk, my grandmother, in her beige ford, would wave and shout ‘hello!’ to&nbsp;all the honking cars, as though a parade was greeting us. But they were just angry, as she&nbsp;drove against 1 way traffic, taking a shortcut back to the main road. The chimneys were to be demolished in the 90s, but people protested. They had become vital to the skyline, though their original function was dormant. In 2014 they became protected structures. The men’s and women’s changerooms are a kilometre apart.&nbsp;The ‘room’ faces the sea. People’s bodies are shielded from human eyeballs, but exposed to&nbsp;wind, sidewards rain and salty sea spray. On this day, the seemingly endless sheet of grey was lifted, and I recorded the reflections of sunlit water on a usually grey place. At the end of the pier, the story ends the same way each time: A statue of Mary with a halo of iron spikes… the concrete ground breaks up, piled up rocks continue alone out to sea, falling apart as water breaks through and long seaweed furls over; an unwalkable path to an unreachable lighthouse. I wonder if I kept walking would the path break my ankles. I wonder if anyone I know has been to&nbsp;that lighthouse. https://mariablackwell.com/Strange-uncertain-title Thu, 13 May 2021 06:38:36 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Strange-uncertain-title Strange + uncertain&nbsp; Sawtooth ARI, 2020 ︎︎︎ https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy Thu, 13 May 2021 06:42:53 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy Sound by Leni Philippe-Janon. https://mariablackwell.com/First-Page-Template-copy-copy Tue, 01 Nov 2022 06:37:29 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/First-Page-Template-copy-copy Indivisible&nbsp;Salamanca Arts Centre, 2020 ︎︎︎ https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:34:47 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy-copy Tue, 01 Nov 2022 05:36:02 +0000 Maria Blackwell https://mariablackwell.com/Second-Page-Gallery-Template-copy-copy <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4247d69329acabd22cd9e19547b5467c5dcfed9c9ec528b69438c6023a16b22a/MBlackwell_2021_617.jpg" data-mid="157544789" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4247d69329acabd22cd9e19547b5467c5dcfed9c9ec528b69438c6023a16b22a/MBlackwell_2021_617.jpg" /> <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/909d7706e2ee83ba07aa499737a16ac57798f8eefa4b0f0d6541304bd6eb1c27/MBlackwell_2021_488.jpg" data-mid="157544788" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/909d7706e2ee83ba07aa499737a16ac57798f8eefa4b0f0d6541304bd6eb1c27/MBlackwell_2021_488.jpg" /> ︎ by Alex Hullah