Emily Farncombe

ARTIST INTERVIEW SERIES
2006|01


This interview project has been developed by Wellington Arts Centre as a simple way to collect, reveal, and archive the creative voices working in our city. The series was established by Arts Programmes and Services Manager, Eric Holowacz, as an ongoing repository of Wellington's cultural efforts, ideas, and projects. Interview 01 is with transplanted British artist Emily Farncombe.

Farncombe moved to Wellington from Scotland, where she completed visual arts studies and began her early career in contemporary installation and multi-media work. From the other side of the globe, Farncombe first established contact with Wellington Arts Centre and its staff in 2005. Upon arriving in New Zealand in February 2006, the artist began developing an exhibition proposal to further her creative practice. Farncombe's first New Zealand work, Windance, will be on view in the arts centre gallery from 25 July to 8 August.

Eric Holowacz sat down with the artist to discuss her influences, recurrent themes, life in a new country, and what happens when wind turbines and human movement combine.




Holowacz: You are a recent arrival to New Zealand, having made that Antipodean journey earlier this year. Tell me about your Old World past, and your arts training in the UK.

Farncombe: I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in June 2004 with a BA Honours in Tapestry and Fine Art. I then worked as a community artist, in and around Edinburgh, running art workshops for 7-18 year old. I also established a studio and worked part time on my own art.

Holowacz: What motivated your move around the world, and what has inspired you after arrival in Aotearoa?

Farncombe: I wanted to experience a new country, connect with relations that I had never met before and take my creative ideas to another country.

I worked as a WWOOF'er (Willing Worker on Organic Farms) in the Coromandel, before settling in Wellington.

I love being outside. I set aside an hour each day to draw, take photos and absorb my new surroundings. I caught the tail end of the summer so was able to enjoy the beautiful colours of the sea and the thick, lush bush which I have never come across before.

Initially I spent quite a bit of time in Palmerston North, with family friends. And there I fell in love with the wind turbines!

Holowacz: When I looked at your earlier work and installation projects, they were rich with imagery, new media, and unorthodox projections. Tell us about how you developed the mechanics of these projects.
Farncombe: As children we used to make lanterns from wood, tissue paper and glue. The lantern technique is inspired by my amazingly creative and inspiring Mum!

I started getting interested in projecting images onto the surface of these sculptural lanterns when I was drawing up proposal sheets to send off to galleries for large-scale installations.

I experimented making the installations as models to see if they would be successful in a larger scale. When I photographed the process, the result was like a surreal little world unto itself. Then I started making the sculptures larger.

I still haven't accomplished my first goal which is to make a sculpture large enough so that the viewer can get inside and experience projected imagery, becoming part of a little world, interacting with the space and becoming the sculpture. Enveloped.

Most of the imagery I had been using until now has been based on natural forms. I had a sister who died of cancer 10 years ago, and her last wish was for her family to create a remembrance wood planted with deciduous trees. The wood (24 acres of Lake District fell side) is now a forest of contemplation, and is the most wonderful place to go and have an inspiring walk and think!

Much of the imagery I used on the projection of the sculptures was documentation of 'Lucy's Wood'. She was the naturally gifted and arty one out of us siblings, and she is still constantly nagging me to get on to the next project. Lucy pushes me to my creative limits - I think this is one of the reasons I am here in New Zealand.

Holowacz: Now that you've left that inspiring landscape and very personal and tranquil acreage, you are faced with entirely new landscapes, flora, habitats. Your first major show here in NZ, Windance, is an installation for the Wellington Arts Centre Gallery in late July. What influences, new and old, helped build the material for this work?

Farncombe: Just before I left Edinburgh for New Zealand, I started filming a dancer and used this imagery to project on to large white umbrellas. This quickly became a sculptural projection installation. It was a collaboration I did for an exhibition called 'Spinach' where all artists had to make some reference to the notion of spinning. The dancer I was working with was interested in spinning to reach a point of meditation and trance-like movement. I was interested in her ideas and we worked well together.

My work has also been strongly influenced by a trip I made to Tibet three years ago. I have been intrigued by the notion of the Tibetan prayer wheel, another notion reflected in my art. I love the ideas of the prayers being hidden inside the wheel and how, when it is spun, every rotation is the equivalent of reading out each individual prayer contained within. So the more you spin the more you are sending out to the gods, it is a very logical way of spreading your prayers!

As I mentioned, I was based in Palmerston North before moving to Wellington. I discovered the Manawatu wind farm whilst I staying with my friends there, and I was completely overwhelmed by their huge scale and numbers. I love the buzz I get when I stand directly beneath them - they are awesome monsters of energy. I just find wind turbines beautiful, and the sound they make is wonderful too. I thought it would be fun to combine human energy with mechanical energy and see what happened. Wind power is the complete opposite of nuclear energy, which is the most visible and dominant in Britain.

Holowacz: It's been said that art often emerges from great turmoil and times of crisis. Have you had any jarring moments in New Zealand?

Farncombe: Yes, I have just recently pulled myself through a big confidence crisis. I had never questioned my motive for coming to NZ or the reasons why I create art. Recently I have been questioning everything from what it means, what I want to communicate, what I want to do with my life and what life is about. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't need too, I instinctively knew I was doing the right thing and just went with my gut feeling on everything. But when I was finding it difficult to get a job and meet like-minded people, I started to question everything! It was too much to ponder at once, and I started feeling a bit pants about myself - as one would with so many terrifying thoughts buzzing through ones head!

New Zealand has provided so many open doors of opportunity for me, I think if we have confidence in what we believe in, life will take us in the right direction. It is scary to question everything, but is certainly worth it when you realise you are on the right path or need to change direction.

Holowacz: Yet your Windance imagery is so fluid and lyrical, and seems to contain a sense of wonderment. Are trying to solicit a form of enchantment?

Farncombe: I like the idea of enchantment and mystery; I want the viewer to question the scale and the sense of place in the images that I make from projecting on to the surface of the sculptures.

Holowacz: You explained that Windance contains a gestational notion of man or woman transmogrified into machine, as one continual organism. Where does this thread come from?

Farncombe: I want to link man and machine to make these energy makers seem more appealing to people, so that they see wind as a good way of making clean energy. I think linking an aesthetical aspect to it, such as a dancer, is a good way of communicating this.

Holowacz: The wind is undeniable in Wellington, and lately there has been great public debate over wind power and the aesthetic of turbine farms. Are you trying to make a point about this controversy, or just using that kernel to articulate something else entirely?

Farncombe: It wasn't my original plan to make a point out of the wind farm that is proposed for Wellington. I was initially unaware of project west wind, even before I fell in love with the Manawatu wind farm. However now that I know about it I would like Windance to indicate support for the development of the project. Wind energy is a positive way forward.

Holowacz: Well your new art and upcoming installation will certainly dance around that notion, and recall machinery and environment - but in a human skin. Thanks for your time, Emily, and for bringing your work to Wellington.