How to get perspective with artist Rhiannon Hopley

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Rebekah: [00:00:00] Recording and just in the spirit of reconciliation, the Freelance Jungle would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands of where we’re gathering today and their continuing connection to land, water and sea throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and the official position of the Freelance Jungle is that sovereignty was not ceded.

Rebekah: Um, and therefore we support a treaty. Um, we pay special respect and welcome to anyone who is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander extraction today. Thank you very much for joining us. We’re going to be hanging out with Rhiannon today as she takes us through one of the most mind blowing art adventures that I’ve ever heard of.

Rebekah: Imagine singing art. Arctic and science and doing stuff all together and basically the tip of the world and seeing [00:01:00] what comes of it. So I’m going to hand over to Rhiannon and then at the end of the presentation we’ll have a little bit of a Q& A, but you can also add your questions and comments as we go in the chat section so that if you’re If you want to remember something you can by using that feature.

Rebekah: So welcome Rhiannon, it’s up to you. You can take her over.

Rhiannon: Thank you for having me. I’d also like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Wongal people of the Eora Nation of the land in which I’m sitting on today and usually work in. Um, I’ll get started by sharing my screen. Thank you all for coming. How do I do full screen of this?

Rhiannon: Oh, I’ll do it that way. Maybe we should have tested this

Rebekah: first. Sorry folks, we had too much fun having a chat and, uh, we were, I was also shambolically late because that seems to be my season at the moment. [00:02:00]

Rhiannon: I think that’s perfectly fine because also in the Arctic, time was exceptionally strange. It was a bit over two weeks while I was there.

Rhiannon: And honestly, it felt like I was there for a year. So trying to fit this into 30 minutes is also going to be incredibly difficult anyhow, but there we go. All right. Let me close this and start again. It’s not letting me out of

Rhiannon: the one screen too, please. Yes, there we go. All right. Yay. Yay, can we see that? Hi, it’s me.

Rebekah: Yes.

Rhiannon: So I’m a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, graphic designer. I work as a business advisor as well within the [00:03:00] creative industries and also a curator. I do a bunch of different stuff. How do I move on? There we go, I move on that way.

Rhiannon: And this means I’m getting to do a lot of cool stuff, working in the arts and entertainment industry primarily, doing creative services, and my art practice. involves a lot of different things too. So this is what got me to the Arctic and why I was there was to work on my creative practice as opposed to my business per se.

Rhiannon: And a lot of my work explores the abstraction and stillness of time and place. And considering our connection with placemaking, identity, and the relationship between nature, our urban environment, and the human condition. So, I work across photography, moving image, projection, and installation, and I like to try and [00:04:00] create multi sensory spaces as well with my work.

Rhiannon: So, that means I’m working in a lot of different places a lot of the time. This is an example of some of them. And more recently I got to play in the Arctic circle and play with ice and create and meet a whole bunch of weirdos right up the top of the world. Um, we, that was our home for a bit over two weeks, a 91 meter icebreaker.

Rhiannon: And it was a little bit ridiculous. So it was. As you can see a really long way away. Um, so Sydney’s latitude is 33 degrees south and I traveled all the way up to the top in Longyearbyen and we went around And that was at 78, and the furthest we got was 82, so the 80 seconds [00:05:00] parallel. This was our route that we did.

Rhiannon: It was exceptionally ambitious. This residency has been going for a really long time. It’s the Arctic Circle Art and Science Expedition Residency. And this was a special one. So a lot of it’s normally on a smaller sailboat, so it’s not possible to circumnavigate. So this was something quite ambitious and something that they’ve not done before as well.

Rhiannon: A lot of the artists that were on it, and scientists, and We had a range of different people, architects, tattoo artists, all sorts of different people up there looking at different things, and a number of them had actually been before, which was quite cool. Um, so it was a lot of alumni as well as also being opened up to new artists and creatives to come along and experience it as well.

Rhiannon: And thankfully we did actually get to circumnavigate. There were a few moments where that [00:06:00] changed and shifted with weather. Um, this was pretty much what it was like inside. That was my little cabin space that I was in that I shared with another artist from New York. And it was a giant ship and the perspective was exceptionally strange.

Rhiannon: It was incredible. We’d do landings each morning and afternoon or a Zodiac cruise if landings weren’t possible. Sometimes we had weather where we weren’t able to at all, but the landscape was different everywhere we were. Um, and here is one of the glaciers and you can see on the hills where the line is darker.

Rhiannon: This was, I’m not going to touch too much on this sadness that a lot of people felt up there with Very, very obvious climate [00:07:00] change, but that darker line on the hills was where the glacier was only a couple of years ago. And this was a place that every Illuminae artist had been before, unlike most of the places that we went were new.

Rhiannon: And so this one was near the end of our trip, and it was quite hard for a lot of people to be there. Because where we landed, we wouldn’t have been able to land it just a few years ago. I went backwards! And then there was landscapes like this as well, where it was just little ice gardens and yes, that’s a polar bear.

Rhiannon: I figured I’d get him in here first, um, because I know a few of you already know about him and would want to know about him more. So we came across him when we were exploring, um, uncharted landscape and water. So a lot of where we went, because of what I was saying with the glaciers receding [00:08:00] so quickly, most of what we experienced was uncharted.

Rhiannon: Either because the landscape had changed so much, or it had been inaccessible from ships that could actually do chartering. So this little chunky boy that we met, we were exploring around this giant lagoon that was covered in ice, little icebergs and fresh ice. And he appeared out of pretty much nowhere, because it was such a rocky landscape.

Rhiannon: Um, all of a sudden he was there, we were all sitting in Zodiacs, it was just a Zodiac cruise, we weren’t doing a landing, it was to help navigate for a landing later, and pretty much decided that yep, this was his spot, we sat there in the water looking at him while he was looking at us, and I had to include this photo because he was so curious and he looked like a giant cat.

Rhiannon: [00:09:00] He just sat down and was like, yep, I’m going to watch you while you’re watching me. And it was a pretty wonderful experience. We did try to land here the next morning for a landing and was very, very quickly evacuated. We’d sent up drones and all sorts of things to help navigate and make sure that we were safe where we were.

Rhiannon: But. The landscape is very deceptive and changes very, very quickly and there he was again. So he was a nice big chunky boy, which was really nice to see. And just to get animals out of the way, there was lots of them, but walrus. These guys were incredible. Um, so this was this huge big pack that we came across.

Rhiannon: This was one of our landings. You can see the fog starting to come in. Um, They went for a swim while we were there, and we had to keep distance, of course. [00:10:00] Um, but they’re exceptionally cute. The time we were there, most of us just sat and watched the walruses the entire time. It was brilliant. Um, and to give you an idea of how quickly the landscape can change.

Rhiannon: This was probably about 10 minutes later. And to give you a bit of perspective on scale as well. Um, it was constantly shifting and changing everything we do differently. Locations for a morning landing and an afternoon landing most of the time. So we’ll usually never in the same space. And even if they were close, they were drastically different like this.

Rhiannon: And again, to give you an idea of scale, that’s a zoomed in shot of that same mountain, and there’s people walking along from one of the hikes.[00:11:00]

Rhiannon: And a little bit more with scale and different landscape. It was really, really strange because you didn’t have anything to grasp and help with that perspective. It didn’t make sense, there was no buildings or a lot of the time there wasn’t people because we were in a smaller group and mapped out perimeters that we knew was safe to be in because polar bears, as we know, are an obvious threat, and we don’t want to disturb anyone.

Rhiannon: But the landscape was absolutely stunning, and it would change from something like that to this where we’re doing short Norwegian hikes. Um. Which, we’re not ever sure, it was more that you could take time and wonder and do photographs and you’re allowed to stop with those. Um, there was long hikes as well where it was just powering through, climbing over ridiculous landscape like this.

Rhiannon: I am down on the [00:12:00] ground here taking this photo and I had to climb directly up in front of me. That was the easiest path there. And then you’ve got Whipped Cream. This was travelling along, um, one of the, I think it’s the, actually it’s the largest glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. And we travelled along this for an entire day, and we only saw a third of it.

Rhiannon: We got to drive up and be really, really close to the front of it, which is the closest any of the guides have ever been as well, because in the Zodiacs it’s not safe to do this. Um, all of the glaciers are active, and there is a huge risk in being close to them like this but in the icebreaker we were able to, and they’ve been monitoring it for a while.[00:13:00]

Rhiannon: And it comes above the front of the boat here and it’s still 10 meters away from the boat to give that some sort of scale. We thought we could reach out and actually touch it from the, from the front of the boat. And then you have dance parties in the middle of the Arctic, because why not? We anchored at this glacier.

Rhiannon: Obviously not. That close to it, but a little bit further out where it was safe to. And we had dinner out the back on the helipad and then me and my cabin buddy decided that it was the perfect place for a dance party. So that’s what happened after dinner. While this giant glacier is behind us. That. The man in the space suit was one of the artists there, Paul.

Rhiannon: Absolutely incredible, he’s just had a show open up. Um, and he was actually [00:14:00] making a film up there. So, hence the space suit. This was before we got up to the 82nd parallel. And this is the polar ice cap region. And this was bizarre. There was something really, really, really strange about being in this landscape.

Rhiannon: Everyone, I mean, we were all strange already. Let’s be honest. It was a whole bunch of creative science nerds and weirdos on an icebreaker at the top of the world. But. Everyone got a little bit stranger up here. There was something about it. It was incredibly cold. You saw the ice and water freeze on the boat, on the deck.

Rhiannon: It was slippery. It was dangerous. But it was a very, [00:15:00] very, very strange landscape. And I cannot imagine what it would have been like to travel this area before and be exploring it properly. Um, very, very odd. But with the landscape and that beautiful different perspective and that constantly shifting light, it was 24 hours sun while we were up there.

Rhiannon: And that gave it its own sort of warped sort of reality. Because we were doing different landings in different spots, um, sometimes a day would feel like three days or four days. And then sometimes it would feel really short as well but time was really stretched and pulled. And. Everything felt really slow though, which [00:16:00] was beautiful about it, even if there was a lot happening and a lot going on

Rhiannon: and just the ice and the magic experiences around that. It makes this most incredible little crackling popping sound when you’re near it. It almost sounds, I’ve listened to a couple of recordings that aren’t particularly clear. I was going to try and share one. Um, but. It almost sounds like a fire out of context.

Rhiannon: It has that same kind of magic sort of pop crackle noise going on. And when you’re surrounded by nothing and there’s so few people, there’s something really incredible about it. As well as experiences like this of seeing a full rainbow at sea.

Rhiannon: Now, as I was saying, the weather constantly shifted and changed [00:17:00] and you would have the most incredible fog and it would come in within seconds sometimes. There was one morning where I was really, really tired because also you need to remember you’ve you can be up the entire time it’s 24 hours on you have full ability to work that entire time to create that entire time you need to be really strict with yourself and understand what’s important, make decisions on what you want to do at landings before you have any idea what that landscape looks like.

Rhiannon: Be strong in your decision and knowing that it could go any which way there could be a polar bear that turns up and completely disrupts your plans. Um, and there was one morning where I woke up, it was about two o’clock. I was so exhausted. I was like, [00:18:00] I felt like getting up. I wanted to get up. Something was like, no, go upstairs, go up all of the staircase.

Rhiannon: I was sleeping in the bottom, the bottom deck. Go all the way up to the top, see what’s happening in the, in the, um, on the bridge. I was like, no, my body actually hurts. Rest. You don’t need to be up. I woke up like 20 minutes later and went stuff this. I feel the same. I’m doing it. And I got up and I woke up in the thickest fog in absolute nothingness.

Rhiannon: It was stunning. You couldn’t see far from the ship at all. It was a couple of meters. I came, maybe it was 30 meters given that the glacier was 10 away. Who knows? It felt like just a couple of meters from the ship. And there was no horizon. The rest of the world at that point [00:19:00] ceased to exist. But then I was also questioning, have we ceased to exist, not the rest of the world?

Rhiannon: And there’s a few people that I’ve told about this experience that have gone, oh my god, that sounds terrible, but there was something really beautiful and comforting in it. And it was Bringing that back, that perspective of the rest of the world can fall away and it doesn’t matter. And there can be something really nice in being in that moment.

Rhiannon: And I decided to stay up because it was so quiet, so beautiful. And there was something really strange about that warped perspective again, of going, where are we? Have we Disappeared. Are we in a completely different place or did the rest of the world disappear? Because that would be kind of nice too. [00:20:00] And so I stayed up for a while.

Rhiannon: It was just me and the bridge with the crew. And all of a sudden there’s these two little strips of black headlands and we were going in between them. We were coming in to find a place to anchor, and where we’d be spending the morning, and it was this huge big, what I’d been told it was going to be this big glacier, and that’s kind of all I knew at that point, but we were heading in, and just watching the landscape starting to appear through this fog, and we, again, had to charter because it had changed so much, and when we came in, There’s a bit of an idea of what it can be like out there.

Rhiannon: We really are in nothingness. [00:21:00] But when we’d started to come in, there was this huge big glacier that revealed itself. And we floated around because we were charting and also finding a good spot to land and anchor for the day. We were slowly going around the entire edge of this giant glacier. And it was Very active, as you can see, incredibly active and making huge big waves coming down from when they dropped as well.

Rhiannon: And most of the time they weren’t making much noise, which means it’s even bigger and it’s very, very deep there. The sun started to come out and touch on the glacier in parts, and it was the most incredible morning. So I was there from about 2. 30. Until [00:22:00] about 7am, just experiencing this, no one else was up and just getting to watch the sun come through, touch on things and hearing the glacier fall in parts without, you hear it, you hear the crack and you can’t see it.

Rhiannon: You’ve got to try and work out where it is, which is where the danger comes from being too close to them too. And the fog started to come back in as we found our spot to anchor. They put the anchor down and the fog came in and the glacier within seconds was gone. We couldn’t do a landing that morning because the glacier was so active and you couldn’t see anything.

Rhiannon: One or two artists got up when it was at this point, but you could only see parts of it. [00:23:00] So it was really, really incredible to be the only artist, only person up that wasn’t Not even any of the guides were up at that point. And get to see this entire glacier and then as soon as we anchored it just the fog just completely dropped and disappeared and it was gone for the rest of the day.

Rhiannon: We tried to stay there to hope that it lifted. Um. But that was sort of a lot of the beauty in the space too, is that it would constantly shift and change and you’re at complete mercy of it. And sometimes these experiences would happen and you either got to experience them or you didn’t. And that was part of it.

Rhiannon: And this space was incredibly beautiful. Um. This was where there was an old [00:24:00] whaling station, a hunting station there. And as you can see, the mountains are absolutely huge. Um, there’s a bit of warp perspective with the water because of the wide angle and being a panoramic, but you can get a little bit of an idea that’s zoomed up in the top of the mountain and some of the whale bones there.

Rhiannon: So most of this landscape was ice or rock. And Coming here with so much harsh contrast and there’d be mud from glaciers. We had days where we got stuck in it. Um, it was like quicksand and then climbing over the Rocky Hills and complete ice. And then there’s, it was the only place. that had green. There was one or two others that we did see [00:25:00] as well, but this was the first place and I remember exploring and looking around and just being like, wow, there’s these tiny, it’s this basically this death valley because of all of the horrendous stuff that had happened to the whales here, but there’s these tiny little explosions of life.

Rhiannon: And that’s what they felt like looking at them. They’re just, they’re forcing through in this ridiculous landscape. They can’t grow more than a few inches because it’s just too harsh. So they cover. And the reason that this was so green and had so much growing here was because of the whale bones. So I found this out a little bit after we’d been exploring because one of the guides was talking to us and explaining the space and the history of it.

Rhiannon: And. [00:26:00] The reason it was like this, and I loved it because I’d already thought of them as being these tiny little explosions of life. They grew from death. They grew from these bones because of the oil and the nutrients in them allowed them to have life from this, in this harsh landscape. And there was something really incredible about that.

Rhiannon: And I think a lot of that’s hugely important with how we look at things and that walk perspective and the end of something. Can be really beautiful. I wanted to share a little bit. I know we’re getting close on time too, but I wanted to share a little bit of the work, some of the work I was doing.

Rhiannon: Obviously, the photos you’ve seen a part of that too. Um, but this was something I took because we had no real, I had no real grasp in some ways. Some people had been before, so they had plans of things a bit better, but [00:27:00] This is cyanotype and it was something I wanted to play with while I was there to give myself something to take the pressure off.

Rhiannon: It was experimental. It was playful. It could go terribly wrong and not have any outcome whatsoever. Um, so the first day that we had proper sun for a landing. I tried to do it in one of the most challenging ways I probably could have by putting ice on top of this treated paper and seeing if I could potentially balance out the cold temperature against the sun and allow them to expose in time before they melted.

Rhiannon: And that didn’t quite work. Um, but there was something really pretty in the outcome from it too. Because it seeped into the paper underneath, even though I had it covered. So that was me washing them in the tiny, tiny little [00:28:00] bathroom in our cabin. And the ice in the bucket at the bottom was me collecting more to make up some more chemicals.

Rhiannon: So I made up the chemicals there from glacier ice to then paint onto the paper to then expose it. And We then had a really good sunny day. I didn’t have any more paper printed. I’d had a few for the morning and it was the first, one of the first days we had a landing in the same spot. So I was frantically over lunch trying to paint and treat more paper and have it dry in time.

Rhiannon: Um, and because you have to be so careful, you can’t pick any of the, this was, space was a lot greener too, which was nice. Um, because you can’t pick any of the flowers and you have, you can’t tread on any of the moss even you have to be so careful with it. [00:29:00] Um, I was carefully placing it in between sheets of acetate and trying to get an exposure with that.

Rhiannon: Um, but yeah, it was, it ended up working out quite well, I brought back mixed chemicals so I have more to play with here. And, yeah. I am in the, at the moment in the works of preparing a solo exhibition for, um, my gallery in Hobart, which will be next year, the same time as Dark Mofo. And a lot of that will be looking at this kind of landscape and that connection to new life and death and how good can come from an end.

Rhiannon: And an end necessarily isn’t bad, and that kind of perspective and shift that we can get, and that passing of time and changing of things. [00:30:00] And now all of it is impermanent as well. There was, um, it’s been very, very strange coming back. I think that’s probably been the hardest thing because as I was saying, it was, it felt like an entire year that we were together and a lot of us were like, okay, no, we, we can’t say goodbye.

Rhiannon: It’s, that’s going to be too hard. I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime together. So it’s, See you soon. And everyone’s been in connection and kept talking and trying to explain and process the experience that we had together. And it was really beautiful because there was that perspective of slowing down, coming back to things and realizing how small we are, but in a really positive, beautiful way.

Rhiannon: This [00:31:00] landscape made you feel. Like, yes, it was, there was parts of it that were really concerning and that we’ve got a group that’s going to be talking and meeting regularly to discuss, um, eco death and the grief that’s connected to that and how we don’t talk about it. And it’s this non existent thing that we’re all experiencing and sharing and feeling, but it’s.

Rhiannon: So much more important than a lot of the day to day rubbish that we get stuck in. And I think that’s the one thing I’ve really wanted to bring back from it and hold on to is, not that we don’t matter, we matter hugely, but the perspective on that needs to ebb and flow in the same way where it didn’t make sense up there.

Rhiannon: Because we get stuck on really finite details. Of every day. I [00:32:00] do not want to hustle anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to make that work in a capitalist world. If I could change that, I would. Um, but there’s, there’s something in that, that I want to hold on to and bring it into my practice, bring it into my work where there’s that perspective shift where I, before I went up there, I was burnt out to all hell trying to get things done, trying to, Be in a space where I could be away for a month from working as well.

Rhiannon: And coming back, it was like, this doesn’t matter that much. I was giving it so much weight. Um, but yeah, I wanted to share that. Coming back has been strange, but there’s been some fun things about it because I brought a walrus back with me, as did one of my friends that was there. And so these are the photos that we’ve been sharing, at least some of them.

Rhiannon: That we’ve been sharing with each [00:33:00] other

Rhiannon: of their travels around the world with us, because sometimes the smaller things can matter more too.

Rhiannon: And that’s pretty much the end of it. But there was one thing I wanted to add when I was, um, before we did the landing where I managed to get most of the work done with my cyanotypes, because it had failed most days. I’ll be honest. It was near the end of the trip and it was finally working. Um, I’d been told before we did our morning landing that.

Rhiannon: The space we were in had been known for reindeer sightings. This reindeer does not exist anywhere else other than Slough Island. And they’re short, stumpy. They’ve got tiny little legs. Um, and I was like, I’ve never seen a reindeer. I want to see a reindeer. That is happening today. We’re seeing a reindeer and it happened.

Rhiannon: So I’ve [00:34:00] been holding onto the reindeer magic with it all as well.

Rhiannon: So yeah, that’s my artist website. That’s my creative services. That’s me. Hi, thank you. Thank you so much. If anyone has any questions, I feel like I’ve opened up a hell of a can of worms there, but

Rebekah: Honestly, I think, thank you so much for taking us through this, Rhiannon, and the thought that you put behind it.

Rebekah: At times it felt like being in a meditation with someone, just experiencing the world as if it was coming past on one of those little clicker things that we had as kids or in the slow photography. So I just want to thank you for creating that. Opportunity for many of us to connect with your journey mindfully, as well as explore the concepts that you were talking about.

Rhiannon: Thank you. I wanted to, I honestly, I didn’t think I’d do this well with time. I was like, Oh, I need to move through this quickly because there was so much more that as well. [00:35:00] I, one of the really nice takeaways from it with the landings too, was You need to trust your gut. You need to trust in your decisions.

Rhiannon: And it would mess with things if you wanted to change things up too much after signing up for a walk or a landing or a perimeter. Because it would shift how many guides were needed in spaces. Um. So one of the beautiful things that our main navigator would talk about was now is now, now is not later. So live in that moment with it.

Rhiannon: That’s awesome.

Rebekah: Did anyone have any questions specifically for Rhiannon about anything that she’s discussed today? I can see a couple of little heads nodding. You’re welcome to, um, either jump on screen or ask it in the chat, whatever feels most comfortable and confident for, for you.

Amy: I can kick us off if you want me to.

Amy: Sure. I had so many questions and I was going to ask about, you know, what [00:36:00] does, what noise does a walrus make? But I won’t make you do your walrus impersonation if you don’t want to.

Rhiannon: Oh, I’m trying to think. ,

Amy: I, I feel like I did it so well last time. You did, but it was like, it just came naturally. Yeah. Um, the other thing you might share a video

Rhiannon: of them.

Amy: Yeah. Cool. . Um, the other thing I wanted to ask was like, you talk so positively and with such kinda hope and all about the beauty and all of this, did it ever feel bleak out there?

Rhiannon: The only time it really felt bleak was that glacier I showed you. And that’s because it was one of there was so many people that had been there and so many people that had been there over the last 10 years who had a different perspective on it and a different memory of that place.

Amy: Yeah.

Rhiannon: And seeing it, knowing what it looked like before, [00:37:00] and seeing that change in such a short time for some people, there was a couple of people that only been there I think four years prior, possibly less even. And some people that had been there close to eight years ago. So people that had been there eight years ago were expecting some change.

Rhiannon: But it was really shocking to see just how far it had receded from their own memory of it. You see things on paper and we’ve We were shown a number of things where there’s a huge big glacier that’s only four kilometers long now. It’s actually going to split the island in half. Um, but I think because everyone had a personal memory and connection to it, it hit that little bit differently.

Rhiannon: And yeah, there is a space for grieving as far as climate. [00:38:00] And all of that, and there needs to be space for it. But I also think it’s important to appreciate it for what it is too. And everyone got sick of saying, wow, like, Oh, wow. Wow. I have a better vocabulary than this. Why do I just keep saying, wow, but it was just so vast and so big and it was hard not to feel inspired and see wonder in it too.

Rhiannon: Very excellent point.

Amy: Thank you.

Annetta: Um, I wanted to just expand on it. thing I’d put in the chat. Uh, and, and just so you know, I’m a fiber artist when I’m artisting mostly. I used to be a printmaker, um, and never have done cyanotype, but have always loved them. And there, [00:39:00] for me, there is something, um, incredibly vital and precious about physically wearing memories.

Annetta: So whether that’s as a tattoo or on your clothing. So when I typed, I can actually see these on the hems of swing trousers because I think these images deserve movement. Yep. Why I didn’t go, Oh, Hey, soft furnishings. Cause yeah, like gorgeous, like cushions and things, if that’s your jam. But, um, I love the idea of like.

Annetta: skirts with petticoats and really full, long, big hems like mid calf or a swing trouser and seeing those around the hem because I personally love the idea of being able to. Wear that. And then have people ask me about where did you get those fabulous pants? Well, once upon a time I was standing on a glacier.

Annetta: And so Clothing is such a good conversation starter. I love it. [00:40:00] Absolutely. So I actually wasn’t I am frequently very, very, very inappropriately snarky. So it actually wasn’t snark or mockery. I really wanted to let you know, um, I I’m here for the idea that this has movement and like, I, I, you know, if you put these onto a garment and you had.

Annetta: A larger size for an abundant body. I would snaffle it up like nobody’s business. But also I’m here for the walrus love. I think. Thank you. Hello. What do I have? Um, I have a cleaning cloth. I don’t have my platypus with me. Um, it’s Oz.

Rhiannon: Um. One thing that’s really cool with cyanotype is it actually can be done onto material.

Rhiannon: Yeah,

Annetta: so

Rhiannon: it can be done digitally later as well, but it can actually be printed onto material using the chemical. And I don’t

Annetta: know, I don’t know what your future pathways are [00:41:00] going to look like in terms of where you’re making and thinking and, and creating takes you. But I, I hope you find the satisfaction that balances an income where you, it’s all sustainable because, um, I really, I really appreciate you talking about all this because I am, I’m kind of stuck and this is really, um, it’s really beautiful.

Annetta: Thank you.

Rhiannon: I was too before I left, which made this. I, I almost couldn’t even go last minute. I had some health things and a few other things pop up with it. And it was like, Oh, maybe this is silly and it’s just insane to be doing this. So I, I very much understand that stuck feeling. I’m trying as hard as I can to not fall back into that because I’ve gotten that time and space to go.

Rhiannon: No, it can be different. And it doesn’t feel like a choice always and I don’t want to say that it is because that sounds bullshit and [00:42:00] cliche but it can be too because it’s just a reframing and a rethinking of how you approach things.

Rebekah: Hmm. Hmm. One of the things that I came across when you were talking about things, Rhiannon, was the deep sense that we, when we shift that perspective, when we’re in different places, when we’re experiencing these things and the way that your head shifted away from capitalism and productivity and what you knew of being busy to back here, as someone that works in end of life.

Rebekah: That’s exactly what I’ve seen with people that have experienced their life limiting diagnosis or the closing stages of someone they care about’s life because all of a sudden these other things become distractions that melt and shift and dissipate and all of the gossip that we get into and all of the Uh, The smallness of life and all of the things that we thought were irritating all of a [00:43:00] sudden just get swept right away and there’s this weird kind of peace that you have, but only certain things.

Rebekah: And sometimes that can create a frustration. Sometimes it can be that real life is so irritating that you’re like, I don’t want to hear you gossip. Like just. get the hell out of my face. Or, you know, like, I don’t need to worry about this thing because I’m over here doing other stuff. But how do you reconcile that after coming back from it?

Rebekah: Because to be honest, personally, one of the difficulties that I’ve had is experiencing disability and experiencing death in the ways that I have. I continually feel separated. I feel like I’m still out on the ice. Yeah. In a weird kind of way. And I’d like to duck back in sometimes without it feeling like such a big, sharp transition.

Rebekah: So I was wondering, A, are you feeling the same way and B, how are you managing that and the difference between the two things when ultimately the life that we soak in all the time has so much futility attached to it?

Rhiannon: [00:44:00] That was so many questions and many of them weak.

Rebekah: Um. We’ll be here for another four hours, folks, uh, just based on that question alone.

Rhiannon: very much. struggling with it. It’s been, it took me longer than I expected in some ways. Um, it’s been nice and also difficult to come back and not be that busy. That has been a blessing as well as a curse. Um, but I think I’ve always kind of enjoyed separation in some ways. I feel like I’m doing my own thing and I don’t care.

Rhiannon: So I, I get that feeling of being separate from it and being out on the ice and going, Oh, how do I, how do I step back in and approach this? And if you don’t have to don’t, but I just got a

Rebekah: permission slip.

Rhiannon: Yeah. [00:45:00] I think why questioning why and rethinking about why you have to, or how you can to suit yourself is really important and do it in a way that.

Rhiannon: is on your terms as much as you can. If it’s being kind for someone else, that might make it easier. Is that is that the why? Then then you’re not your feelings of being caught in that aren’t as important. And that’s OK, because it’s rewarding to be there and step into that space if it’s uncomfortable, if you’re helping someone else with it.

Rhiannon: Maybe that’s the why with it. Maybe it’s because you have to. So you limit your interaction with that as much as you can. So it does fit within what works. I think that’s how I’ve been approaching it. How it might be a nice way to look at it as well. But [00:46:00] be weird, be separate from it and embrace that part of it.

Rhiannon: walk around with a walrus in the middle of the city climbing up on big things and putting him somewhere and having security come over to you going, what are you doing? Um, and have fun with it.

Rebekah: I love that image. So it’s very beautiful, isn’t it? How did you end up in Jap? Well, the walrus had a longing to try this.

Rebekah: Alrighty, we are technically out of time. Is there any last question that anyone wanted to ask before we skip off?

Rebekah: Anyone, anyone, anyone? Okay. Thank you so much for coming and talking to us today, Rhiannon. So, where can we find you if we’re looking for you? Is it on those websites that you mentioned before, or?

Rhiannon: I will pop them in the chat

Rebekah: to make that easier. Awesome. Alrighty. [00:47:00] And obviously, if anyone’s in Tasmania, if they’re going to Dark Mofa and stuff like that, might be an opportunity to catch you next year as well.

Rebekah: Are there any upcoming exhibitions or anything?

Rhiannon: That’s the main one at this stage. Um, I’ve got a couple of things in the works, but nothing concrete to share as yet. So the main thing will be the solo show in Tasmania. Um, and that will be June next year.

Rebekah: Awesome. We’ll keep us updated. We’ll be in the freelance jungle looking for it.

Rebekah: And thank you so much for joining us today, Rhiannon. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Um, in terms of events that we have coming up, just quickly, folks, we’ve got Amy, Dr. Amy McKernan is going to be teaching you inclusive education. So if you want to build a course, if you want to do anything, um, and you want to make sure that it’s accessible and inclusive, that’s one to watch.

Rebekah: We’ve also got Jess Muddett from Hembury Books coming to talk. Talk about why your stories matter in December [00:48:00] and help you get that book or that story that is inside you scooped up and put out into a format that makes sense. Um, obviously there’s the deadline party and a few other things going if you feel like having a last minute sprint.

Rebekah: Um, but thank you very much for joining us today and we’ll see you next time.

Rhiannon: Thanks for having

Rebekah: us. Bye, Waris.