Sonya Lacey

2011-12-12T05:50:00.001+13:00

The higher you go

2011-10-16T12:51:00.001+13:00

Performance involving reading a short text I wrote for the event, which was held at our apartment, between 6 and 8am, 17 September 2011. Light installation and ceramic work by Alexandra Savtchenko-Belskaia, photographed by Emilia Marinkovich

Whatever Touches Me

2011-08-14T19:18:00.008+12:00

St Paul St Gallery
Print Season 2011 / April 2011

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Untitled, Airbrush acrylic on paper

Drawing (install)

Cast aluminium and electical components

Cast aluminium and electical components

Recent work (click images to enlarge)

2011-07-13T20:03:00.007+12:00

Artspace New Artists Show 2009

2010-02-10T07:41:00.010+13:00

News travels faster in a room with no walls
Curated by Sarah Rose and Sonya Lacey for the Artspace New Artists Show 2009

Description: On invitation from Artspace Director Emma Bugden, we curated News travels faster in a room with no walls, a group exhibition that sat within the New Artists Show 2009. The show took a critical look at the fetishisation of the new in contemporary art and brought together artists from NZ and Australia whose work pushes at the edges of the institution.

Put where it was not
Collaboration with Sarah Rose

Description: This work had three parts:
1. Relocation of the Artspace reading room: the reading room was treated like a found object and relocated into the main gallery of Artspace, exactly as it was.
2. A publication was made and gifted to the reading room, one page per book in the Artspace library. The publication could only be encountered page by page by using the library.
3. The gradual and erratic exchange of two libraries on opposite sides of the world (FormContent, London and Artspace, Auckland). Single books are exchanged between libraries whenever someone is found traveling between the two cities. (Ongoing, shown mid process)

(part one - relocation)
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(part two - publication gift, inserted one page per book in the collection)

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(Part three - documentation on it's way)

Documentation of News travels faster in a room with no walls

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Install

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Matters3

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Louise Menzies

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Josh Petherick

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Sunday Minimalist, Clara Chon

Ready to die, Clara Chon

Not titled, Patrick Lundberg.

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Wire to fire into his heart, Layla Rudneva-McKay

New Artists Show 2009 / Artspace, Auckland

2009-09-07T16:55:00.009+12:00

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News travels faster in a room with no walls
A group show curated by Sarah Rose and I for the New Artists Show 2009, on behalf of Newcall Gallery.

Liz Allan, Clara Chon, Patrick Lundberg, Louise Menzies, Joshua Petherick, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, and a collaborative work by
Sarah and I... pics to come

Link to Artspace

In & Outsides | Newcall Gallery | 10.03.09

2009-05-21T21:46:00.009+12:00

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BEND (STUDY)

BEND (STUDY)

MAQUETTE

EARPLUGS (SKIES FROM 20.02.09)
Images of skies from the newspaper, each piece 15 x 8 x 8mm.
Description: Earplugs was made using every image of the sky printed in the New Zealand Herald on a single day. Images were lightly sanded to lift the pigment, and the resulting dust was formed to the dimensions of commercial earplugs.

DRAWING FOR SCULPTURE (CLOUD)

DRAWING FOR SCULPTURE (WALL 3)

INSTALLATION

INSTALLATION

INSTALLATION

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IN & OUTSIDES | Newcall Gallery | 3 March 2009

2009-05-14T07:44:00.000+12:00

Documentation from Window

2008-11-09T16:27:00.006+13:00

From What Position Do You Speak
16 October -- 14 November

Installation view

Confer, Still projection / architectural intervention

Ball, Paper & water

Ball, Installation view

Poster, After You, A3 Poster with Cherie Lacey

SPEAKS TRANSPARENT STATE

2008-10-20T10:19:00.005+13:00

Sarah Rose, 16 October 2008
For From What Position Do You Speak... at Window

Catching a train I find myself using a rapid transportation system, preschool has become Early Childhood Development and we don’t die, we pass away. Telling the truth is now about making matters transparent. Complex synonyms and jargon have replaced simple language obscuring original definitions. I looked for the meaning for the word “transparency”, derived from trans meaning “to move through or across” and –parency comes from the word parere meaning “to see or appear”. I often fall back to what the dictionary can offer me -the authoritative opinion. Meanings listed are always in reference to a material condition, the passing of light and its exposition of the truth. I experience the word, as a catchword. I think of it in relation to the sensory process of looking, usually motivated by some sort of intellectual imperative. For instance, in optics transparency refers to a material that transmits light so we can see through it. In philosophy, it refers to the ability of the mind to pass through a concept so that its hidden essence is perceptible; in sociology, to a pluralistic discourse and in politics, it is linked to an open and accessible government. All around me, architecture has become ethereal, weightless, and, made of glass. Postwar German parliamentary architecture first used glass as an analogy: to build translucently, is to build democratically. This has become a modern architectural trope. Transparency is an essential part of our built environment. The word transparency has infiltrated many areas of contemporary everyday life – an empty signifier, where all that it seeks to disclose is transparently concealed.

Glass creates spaces that are open and accessible. The ‘see-through-ness’ creates the illusion of uninterrupted and continuous space. Glass frees architecture from a finite reality producing a sense of weightlessness. This feeling of weightlessness, allows us the space to move forward in time, as we do not feel we are closed in. Nor is anything closed out, as the space can be viewed, everything is to be seen, and everything is made accountable. The structure is always informed and defined by the world in flux. The transient space is not rooted in matter - heavy and passive ‘stuff’. We cannot chain down the definition of the space as the qualities are always changing. Glass walls frame people momentarily as they walk by. They hold groups of people as they stop and chat. I always wonder what they are doing, what they are saying and why they are there. Glass architecture hard to define, as it is always changing, moving, by the presence of people.

In building anonymously, without a subject, the reading of a space or a word is open. It empowers the individual, as they have the option to assert themselves as the subject and experience things concretely, to create their own definitions. Walking out of a public building recently I noticed the word “Thank you” printed on the top of a suggestion box. This phrase implies a compressed conversation along the lines of “did you enjoy this space?”- “yes”, “do you support us?”- “yes”, “maybe” or “no”, assuming you have a response, “please put your suggestion in the slot” “okay” followed finally by “thank you”. Language that has an absent subject, is concrete, physical and opaque. This language is instrumental to communicating to a public. The proposition that is presented to me is one of an answer, self-contained and non-negotiable.

Is it really impossible to be autonomous from anything? To actually be anonymous? To truthfully be weightless? But does the subject ever disappear? Perhaps not? Does everything constructed always have a subject? Both the words “Thank you” and walls made of glass are attached to a purpose built space. Indeed gravity brings us right back to the ground, right back to the position we were standing. Transparency can never be stated. The very insistence of it means that you have already known what you wanted to create, to create a position, a definition, and to expect a response to what I have just said. Transparency is not lightness. Transparency is weight.

The subject may not be obvious, it might be discrete or withheld so that a distance is created between the subject and the material, to allow for another subject to engage with it. This discreteness is an important catalyst for an encounter, to create presence. Through presence we are encouraged to break barriers and move through walls. Presence is power. Presence reveals all that is constructed. Presence is what is transparently concealed. Presence is at the mercy of encounters. We would otherwise always be creating presence in the dimension of the imagination. We virtualise, we don’t move, we actualise, we move. There is no stable point when I am fully stopped. Power is self-actual. Presence is always physical, we may not be able to see it, but it is always felt.

Tell you what, I am standing on the other side of the street, and you are inside a building- its walls are made of glass. You will catch my attention to the building itself. I will move towards you. In seeing you, I am made aware of the space and what you are reacting to. While we are on either sides of the glass, however, there is only so much one can say. We cannot hear each other. There is still a physical boundary between us, one that needs to be penetrated in order to experience the presence of what you are saying. We are, otherwise, always creating presence in the dimension of the imagination. We are brought together physically in the same space. To communicate, we need be able to understand transparency. To see through to what we conceal, rather than what we reveal to each other contributes to words forming a definition that has presence, in the moment. The tone of what you are saying places stress and intensifies certain parts of the speech. In turn I will respond not only to what you are saying but also to how it is said.

After You

2008-10-17T16:20:00.002+13:00

Poster text

After You

To begin, let me confide in you. There is here, already, a relation between myself and someone else. To whom am I speaking when I address ‘you’, the you of the heading (‘heading’, in the sense also of where one might be heading, moving towards or crossing a space: where are you heading?), and in the way that this is phrased as a direct response, a straightforward address to another. The title poses a question. From what position do you speak and in the name of what or whom? Every question, it has been said, pre-empts a desired response. When I ask you a question, so this idea goes, it is not out of the desire to learn something new, but because I would like a certain answer returned to me, not from within myself, but from the speech of another. I want to hear the other person say it back to me. But, already, you can see where this is heading: this other person can never return to me what I am looking for, the answer already contained in my question. And this is one of the problems of communication.

To this particular question, how can I respond, and in a responsible way, to the one who asks it, and in the presence of the other. This made me think about the connection between response and responsibility, both clearly derived from the same linguistic root (in Old French, from responder: ‘to answer’, which itself comes from the Latin, respondere: ‘to pledge’). The two actions seem bound, ethically, to the notion of care or consideration of the other. They both move towards (heading in the direction of) the other, in the sense of crossing a space, of filling a silence, of acting out of consideration. Maybe, then, in my response, you are already there, I am responding not to the question, but to you. When I give you my answer, I cannot break this historic and linguistic link between giving you a response, and taking responsibility for how you might, in turn, react.

I like the way these words are also connected with this other one: pledge. I make a promise to you to act in a certain way, a surety of myself for you, the other. And also, a token of love, a promise of loyalty. In this way, my words, how I provide you with an answer, are also a sign of love, as a gift from myself to you. This raises another question since, for some time, we have known that when we give something to another, we ourselves gain something. This is in the sense of sacrifice, to obtain satisfaction not from possessing something, but the greater satisfaction of seeing someone else have it. Here, contained in the notion of pledge, as it is with a gift, there is a dimension of anticipation: like the way one pledges a donation to a charity, this word contains a reference to the future, to a future action. I will give you something more, but for now, take this small token as a promise. Or, I give you a gift, with the unspoken expectation that, at some point in the future, I will receive something in return.

In thinking of response in terms of the pledge or the gift, what might be exchanged? It might not be thought of so much in terms of information, but rather in the order of acknowledgement, recognition of the other person, as they also recognise me as one like themselves. To fill an awkward silence. To make small talk. Words that appear emptied of meaning, which seem as if they don’t carry much weight. But they carry one across the space that separate us.

Again, it is moving towards something, attempting to traverse the gap between now and the future, and also, between myself and another, with the promise of a thing returned. The response as an offering, and in some sense an obligation – that which is designed to bridge the space between the one and the other.

Architects use the word ‘response’ to describe a pillar that supports a building. To what we have already said, then, we can add this notion of support. A response should provide support to a structure, without which it would collapse. To keep hold of this notion of architecture for a moment longer, in a linguistic structure (can we still call it that?), the response lends support, or strength, to communication. Levinas described death, the death that we meet in the face of the other, as a state of non-response, to be without-response. Between myself and the other: to respond to you, in a responsible way, is to give you my support, to keep upright (and alive) that which links me to you. (And you start to wonder, how to traverse the space in those moments that we find ourselves lacking the words…).

You posed a question, called out for a response. In this act of calling out, of reaching towards an other, there is a responsibility to act, an obligation to return something to you, to be entrusted with a reply, to show oneself, to express oneself, to return to you something that you, in the past, have given to me.

Cherie Lacey. October 1, 2008.

From What Position Do You Speak?

2008-10-17T14:38:00.006+13:00

http://window.auckland.ac.nz/

From What Position Do You Speak?
This is an online work that is part of the exhibition at Window, further documentation coming soon...

From What Position Do You Speak?

2008-10-03T19:24:00.016+13:00

Window Onsite and Online
Opens October 16 6-8pm
Show runs October 16 - November 14

General Library Foyer
5 Alfred Street
University of Auckland

www.window.auckland.ac.nz

Moving in time (notes on blue as silver as gold)

2008-08-03T12:02:00.009+12:00

(Text written for a group show involving Patrick Lundberg, John Ward Knox and Sasha Savtchenko at Newcall Gallery)

1. What is time well spent? In this action, time is occupied with resolve, like the occupation of a building. & thinking about time taken: I’ve watched the process of painting and repainting over approximately a month, but the time taken spans decades. My experience of the work comes through an imagined understanding of the action; paint gives an account of the art, the art an attempt to be in time. I understand that reflecting on the past implicates the present, and that it involves the projection of this moment into the future; I am aware of being present, actively here and now. I understand the temporal interconnections forming are determined by my subjective experience.

2. Each practice is filled with the presence of people across time. I had never thought of conversation in terms of tactility.

3. In this action, there are raw materials and the staging of making or unmaking, or at least of un-differentiation. It involves travel – energy and distance decreasing organisation and, along with that, loss of distinctiveness. The enaction of interactions, relationships, reciprocities. This work begins like a diagram; physics then metaphysics. The materials will just be themselves, heavy and light, and always susceptible to physical laws. It is arrogant to believe ourselves outside of these systems.

4. The body has learnt along the way, streamlined the process, become fatigued in points and misjudged in others. The work has been made (a structure set in place, a task completed), but the work is happening. And once a thing is done it can’t be undone (even when it’s gone).

Sonya Lacey

You can see documentation of the work I refer to here

This much is certain

2008-06-13T15:54:00.006+12:00

George Fraser Gallery, May 2008

Structure for standing while talking (after Pistoletto) (2nd state), 2008

Drawing (waves), graphite on paper, 420 x 500 mm each

A deep low over the South Tasman Sea

2008-06-13T15:49:00.005+12:00

Window, March 2008 (with Johnny Chang)
See documentation here

Radio transmitter, radio receivers, mp3 player and mug

Mirror drawing

2008-06-13T15:46:00.002+12:00

December 2007

Songs for the common happiness

2007-12-02T20:11:00.002+13:00

MFA show

Elam, 11.07

Photography by Stephen Cleland (thanks!!)

Structure for standing while talking (after Pistoletto)

Songs (installation view)

Songs (transmitter)

Songs (radios)

Songs (drawings) (installation view)

more drawings

2007-12-02T20:04:00.001+13:00

Songs for the common happiness

2007-12-02T20:01:00.008+13:00

A selection of drawings from Songs for the common happiness

Elam graduate exhibition, November 2007
Drawing media on paper, all approximately 104 x 148 mm