Chelsea Whyte, contributor
Five artists have come together for an show that excites your senses - in surprising ways.
(Image: Owl Project, 9v Sound System, acoustic 11-sided horn (elm, reclaimed oak), electronics, 2011, Sound Lathe, wood, electronics, 2007, courtesy the artists, photo: Tomas Rydin, thisistomorrow.info)
The entrance to the brightly lit main gallery of the TERRA exhibition at Jerwood Space in London?s Southbank is lined with a handful of glass urns, translucent pots with pointed lids all standing on pedestals about four feet high. Artist Edwina fitzPatrick presents these thin glass vessels as one piece, called Arboreal laboratory: In mythology the Gods always smelled good. They are beautiful on their own, and as I leaned in to look closer at the carefully placed holes around the rims, I caught a whiff of something that smelled of sandalwood and saltwater. It was strong but fleeting and it brought back a memory of playing on the beach when I was a child.
FitzPatrick created this series of scent-filled urns as an exploration of Jacobson?s organ, a pair of small pits on either side of the nasal septum just above the nostril. The role of this organ in humans is disputed, though it?s known in animals to aid in sensitive chemical detection, and some say humans use it to sense pheromones.
Once I realised the seemingly empty vases held scents, I moved along to each one, leaning carefully over the delicate glass and inhaling deeply. One smelled of roses and my grandmother?s perfume. One smelled of grass and honey and somehow, strangely, sunshine. I wondered if every scent smelled a little differently to each person, because they each brought back a specific memory for me. Those memories flashed in my mind, almost sculpted out of thin air.
(Image: Edwina fitzPatrick, Arboreal Laboratory: In mythology the Gods always smelled good, glass vessels, scent, perspex plinths, 2004, courtesy the artist, Arboreal Laboratory was created through a Stour Valley arts residency, funded by the Arts Council and the Esm?e Fairburn Foundation, photo: Tomas Rydin, thisistomorrow.info)
Moving through the exhibit, I came to a large installation called Sound Lathe by Owl Project, an artistic collaborative made up of Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons. The sculpture consists of two wooden structures that look like elongated gramophones connected to a lathe, which is used to carve a piece of wood that is fitted with sensors. Although I didn?t see it being played, the Sound Lathe is a musical instrument. The sculpture amplifies the sound of woodworking as the rhythm from the machine travels through electric cords to the cone-shaped wooden speakers - you can hear a chair leg or stair railing being made.
In the back room of the gallery I encountered more sobering work. In a piece made specifically for the TERRA exhibition, Luke Jerram created a three-dimensional representation of a portion of the seismogram of the 2011 Tohuku earthquake in Japan. Seismograms are graphs made from the measurement of ground motion and are composed of vertical lines of varying heights that correspond to the size of a tremor. Jerram converted this two-dimensional readout into a three-dimensional representation using discs printed with a 3D layering technique and stacked together.
(Image: Luke Jerram, Tohoku Earthquake (rotated 9-minute-long seismograph from Tohoku earthquake, Japan 2011), 3D printed data in resin, 2011, courtesy the artist)
It?s curious to be able to visualise 9 minutes of history. It?s also strange, and somewhat relieving, to see such an enormous and tragic event reduced to an object no bigger than a toaster. Standing in front of it, I was glad for the protective glass box the museum has set it in. I almost wanted to pick it up, to throw it, to smash it even. It is physically beautiful, with a pleasant honey colour that almost glows from the light beneath it, but what it represents - loss, terror, the uncontrollable power of nature - is frightening.Continuing in his exploration of things invisible to the naked eye, Jerram?s piece from his Glass Microbiology series steals the show. A large, clear glass sculpture of an E.coli virus cell sits atop a table lit from within. It is an arresting piece: beautiful but, again, almost frightening. They say you have to face your fears to conquer them, so I stepped up to the table to inspect the fine tendrils of hair all around the body of the cell. The sculpture is about 5 feet long in total, half of it devoted to two delicate tails that looked like they might snap if I touched them.
Jerram employs scientific glass blowers - those who made beakers and bottles for laboratories before automation took over - and their expert craftsmanship is shown off in the intricate curls of the hairs and the twisted tube of cloudy glass that makes up the inner workings of the cell.
These small pieces are fitting for the meek gallery space and, though it may only take a few minutes to walk through, this exhibit has small moments of surprise built in to the displays that will keep you looking, listening, and smelling for a long time.
TERRA runs at Jerwood Space until 11 December.
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