DEAD DROP /

Mailbox Art Space 4th - 27th May, 2017.

"Dead Drop" was an installed iteration of Close Observations of a Single Subject made specifically for exhibition in the 19 letterboxes at Mailbox Art Space in Melbourne's CBD.

A poetic meditation on the act of observation, the work delves deeply into the resonances of a single moment, and the piercing, unsettling effect that memory can have on the way an individual sees the world -- and themselves.

"Dead Drop" exhibited from the 4th - 27th May, 2017 at Mailbox Art Space.
141-143 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000.

colour images from exhibition; black and white opening white images by Sarah Walker.

ABOUT THE WORK /

“Dead Drop” is an exploration of the different forms of secret, physical and visual observation of women and their bodies; a meditation on relationships between the surveillance state; domestic violence, feminism, terror and power. The work takes the form of fragmented still frames and prose from the short film, “Close Observations of a Single Subject” which was initially shot in 2015, and was an exploration of the complex relationships that women in positions of power have over other women’s lives and bodies.

Both the film and the art project use the grosser tropes of the existentialist Le Carré-esque spy genre to explore the concept of the violation of the female body; the female body as a subtler, poetic metaphor for the body politic, and the erosion of human rights with the increasing phenomena of mass surveillance and data retention.

This version of the project focuses specifically on different forms of secret, physical and visual observation of the two core characters: the Asset and the Handler. An exploration of the act of “spying” as a metaphor for the observation and objectification of the woman’s body in public spaces.

- Ming-Zhu Hii