Canis Major
Canis Major is an ongoing project taking its name from a constellation of stars best seen from the Southern Hemisphere. Intended to exist as a live and multi-sited work, Canis Major collates past histories with speculative thinking to collectively imagine future systems of navigation and communication. A series of large-scale adaptable textiles made from sailcloth and parachute silk are deployed as transmission markers in the landscape. Materialising the surrounding atmospheric conditions they come into being as a sequence of shapely poetic gestures that connect the body, site and space through a constellation of form making. Activated by the body and by the wind, these amorphous soft sculptures require interaction, entice adaptation, and allow for acts of co-authorship to unfold. The textiles operate as instruments that can be used for intimate relational mapping and haptic observation. Their saturated colours and bright visible patterns move in contrast to the landscape, equally revealing their capacity for signalling across distance. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and supported through a development residency with Bundanon Trust.