The Everywhere Anywhere

The Everywhere Anywhere

Kathryn Cowen and Gareth Jenkins

Chamber 10, The Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability, Waverton, NSW

North Sydney Art Prize

14 - 29 May 2022

The Everywhere Anywhere, 2022, a site specific multimedia multidisciplinary collaborative installation by artist Kathryn Cowen and poet and experimental musician Gareth Jenkins within Chamber 10 at The Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability, Waverton, as part of the 2022 North Sydney Art Prize.

This immersive sound, light and sculpture installation recognises our current ecological and climate challenges and invites us to imagine a new future, led by speculations of the present: synthetic biology, the search for alien life, and science-fictional worldbuilding. Bathed in ultraviolet light, the artists present a future of toxic beauty where biomorphic creatures have evolved.

The Everywhere Anywhere includes fluorescent floor and wall based sculptural assemblages by Kathryn Cowen made from a combination of organic and synthetic/industrial/maritime materials. They are hybridised biomorphs, infiltrating the chamber; acting as propositions for hypothetical future life. Materials used include PVC piping, builders line, plastic, metal, acoustic foam, wire, faux fur, netting, cable ties, fluorescent paint, whipper snipper cord; products of our insatiable consumption. The synthetic materials are combined with found organic materials such as seed pods, twigs, palm inflorescence, feathers, pumice, cotton and shells to form The Biomorphs.

The installation is anchored by The Cascade, a draping of fabric stiffened into undulating folds by Gareth Jenkins; extending downwards from a portal high on the rock face wall, linking the outside to the world within; melding with the existing rock formation. This cloth creation was inspired by existing water stains in the chambers and the remnants of hessian cloth in the cement walls. The Biomorphs nestle within and ride the undulations of The Cascade, venturing beyond to populate the space, occupying crevices, rock ledges and existing wall pipe holes, attaching to protruding wires and spreading across the ground plane to form a cohesive environment that appears to be ‘grown’.

Melding with the work is an audio soundtrack by Gareth Jenkins; an experimental, melodic soundscape interspersed with the invocations of The Everywhere Anywhere, a poetic narrative exploring connections between the mind and body, light frequencies, transmigration and strange worlds. The soundscape flows upward and outward, altering the atmosphere of the room, ricocheting off walls to form a resonant chamber to envelop the audience and aid in the transportation to an ‘otherworldly’ futuristic space.

The final component of the installation, The Tendrils, exploits the full height of the chamber, drawing the viewer’s eye up the column of fluorescent fishing line to appreciate the space in its entirety, completing the transforming, transporting and visceral experience of wonder and delight.

The Everywhere Anywhere transports the viewer into an enchanting space, where the light we live by has changed. Deep in the chambers, The Biomorphs have found their fertile home.