To those who keep going is about the value of labour and time and how we work through these things as artists and as people. Because of my lack of any quantifiable skills, I think endlessly about how precarious my position is – both in terms of having a sustainable art practice (what does that even mean?) and my general ability to generally survive. This ongoing anxiety leads to cold sweats and over thinking but this is the way that we live now, right? Relentlessly preparing for an end which never seems to come or has already passed. There is no self-care or gentleness here only boredom and frustration and competition and the getting up, moving things around and sitting back down again.
At my old job I used to pace, paper in hand, pretending to be busy. And just constant and mindless snacking – filling my body with endless fuels. Here these fuels are made visible: slowly rotting and fermenting and fizzing in place. I think a lot about mouth feel and whether that is important or whether the nuts and fruits and flour and coffee and fat are just the basic fuels for continual labour – the getting up and sitting back down. Or whether when a thing eats another thing, both things end up being the same thing. Or whether the thing that leads to the making of the thing is also the thing that is made. It’s complicated.
For now, though, please enjoy To those who keep going because it is for you.
To those who keep going
Kate Beckingham
21/10-6/11/16
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
