Nicole Awai
The Specimens from Local Ephemera
Red Room Limbo
In 2001, I started physically mapping out a psychological landscape that originated in my then red wall bedroom. The word ‘mapping’ is essential here because subconsciously, I began to chart a course to Local Ephemera.
Local Ephemera is the world of in-between. It is a liminal terrain governed by the sensual and the intuitive where concepts, ideas, inferences and innuendoes (ecological, economical, political and art /historical) take on physical form and are constantly in flux. Things seem to be constantly shifting – displacing, evolving – replacing, oozing – relocating.
The residents of L.E. are a peculiar amalgam of contemporary and historical artifacts from our world that when annexed together seem to create a revolving commentary on our social dynamics.
The focal element in my initial red room, psychological landscape was the ornamental Angostura rum bottle from Trinidad. The implication is that something/ someone can be many things at once, there are multiple perspectives and all are valid. To West Indians this was an innocuous item that we all had in our bars and sideboards at home. It is a representation of a drummer for a troupe of Limbo dancers that originates in Trinidad. This in North American society is akin to a sambo or mammy figure and has more negative connotations. The main point is that it is not culturally specific, the interpretation can be universal and personalized. This item cannot be easily categorized, It does not fit neatly into a box, and it spills out over the edges. It exists in the in-between, in the shift space. I tend to use objects that function in this way for this reason; dolls, ornaments, medical procedure mannequins, wig stands,
historical and religious artifacts and toys that are imbued with social significance and /or meaning.
The Specimens from Local Ephemera were at first realized as installation and sculpture. Sometimes limitation leads to more creativity and after the first installation work, I started to ‘draw’ further elements of the installations
and sculptures that I wanted to make but I did not have the means at the time. I had to manifest them in some form. This developed into the idea of my action figure travelling to Local Ephemera to make field drawings of the specimens she finds there. I was able to incorporate the familiar language of blue prints and technical drawing that I had learned in high school, where we drew screw threads, bolts and machine parts in Orthographic Projection.
My action figure was initially a conduit to this ‘New World’ as well as a way of re-engaging the sensual in art, life and popular culture. She uniquely evolved into the phy
sical manifestation of my art process and quickly became a timeless representation of the Conqueror/ Capitalist/ Player. She uses her Sensation Code, a map legend of sorts that consists of nail-polish chips to navigate to and through Local Ephemera as well as the Daily Word, an evangelical Christian publication that features daily spiritual directives and inspirational Bible quotes and lends the appropriate ‘missionary’s zeal’ to her expedition. I manipulate the idyllic stock photography that appears on the covers of the Daily Word in the collaged tiara shaped borders of the drawings.
In Specimens from L.E Disney’s Tarzan action figure is suspended in the ooze, part of the ooze, physically manifesting a colonial dialogue. In Specimen from L.E: Circular Pitch yet another element enters this physical dialogue, a contemporary gel toy. A topsy-turvy doll in Rolling Locking Devices, Specimen from L.E: Resistance with Black Ooze etc., presented an effective/affective way in which my action figure as ‘Conqueror’ could interact with the natives of Local Ephemera. The conqueror always finds a way to interact, seduce, manipulate, use, abuse, destroy, discard and disregard. History dissolves, evaporates and reconstitutes constantly and all at once, making our 21st century conundrum and the postcolonial predicament as well as the colonial lethargy immediate and ephemeral, distant and perpetual.
2005
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