231. Anie Nheu | Flotsam jetsam
18 August – 21 September
Anie Nheu began a discussion of her piece Flotsam and jetsam by reading it aloud. Inadvertently perhaps, identifying her work as both poetry and installation.
The large character in a box on the right reads as exit. The characters that follow speak of a watery journey and things thrown overboard along the way, presumably to be washed this way and that by the prevailing currents. As we spoke Anie’s poem became a lament for a Chinese culture that she has never known and conversely an Australian culture that to her remains elusive. Anie was born, on the road, to parents
who had already left China and who would take another 17 years to arrive in Australia where Anie assumed her nationality.
Here, decades after arriving in Australia the poise of Anie’s installation speaks of China not so much as a culture lost but as a culture imagined. This is not the story of a migrant discovering and reclaiming an abandoned culture, it is a story of cultural invention.
The idea that the scripted characters of Chines language observe both the role of a symbol and of a picture seems to be carried into the graphic arrangement of this installation. It is as though there are two languages being spoken at one time. There is the Chinese story and another story of arrangement that functions as a kind of dance between the various elements of the installation. This is as much a languageas the Chinese characters it incorporates. And one like Anie’s Chinese cultural heritage that is more a product of her imagination than it is of received or learnt conventions.
There is a gentle touch at work here. One that celebrates the unique qualities of humble materials crafted in the simplest of fashions. Collectively, the serenity engendered by this installation delivers it far from the component elements of its construction and its location, on a street where the various cultures of Australia jostle for a voice. Beyond any cultural precepts this installation has the voice an artist. A most singular artist whose art may be best read as an addition to our culture rather than being the product of any particular culture.
