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Details
- Date
- 2015
- Media category
- Time-based art
- Materials used
- single channel digital video, colour, silent
- Dimensions
- water duration: 35:56 mins, aspect ratio 16:9; plane duration: 42:19 mins, aspect ratio 16:9
- Credit
- Gift of Brian and Gene Sherman 2021. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 27.2021
- Copyright
- © Shaun Gladwell
- Artist information
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Shaun Gladwell
Works in the collection
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About
The pioneering Australian aviatrix, Nancy-Bird Walton, was the inspiration behind Shaun Gladwell’s ambitious installation, The lacrima chair 2015, which imaginatively explored the miracle (and dangers) of flight. Indeed, curator Felicity Fenner has commented, ‘Themes of flight, dance and other feats of gravity-defiance have inhabited Gladwell’s multifaceted practice for two decades’.
A portrait of Nancy-Bird Walton was originally projected onto a large screen in front of a customised airplane chair that audiences could sit in. Above the chair was a sprinkler that dowsed the viewer in water as they watched the fictionalised Walton, played by Kathryn Puie, perform in the air, sea and on land.