BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Think art has nothing to do with a global disease crisis?
What if we told you the art was produced in partnership with scientific institutions dedicated to infection and immunity? With universities and emergency services? With cemeteries?
This is Refuge 2018: Pandemic. And in the past 12 months, artists have worked with members of these scientific communities to produce a series of public events that could educate us about, and help us prepare for, the threats of global disease and unpredictable health crises.
Refuge 2018: Pandemic is part of the Arts House project, and will be facilitated across four days of public forums, conversations, installation, and game. We chat with two of these artists involved – Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey – who worked with epidemiologists during a residency at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.
Their audio-visual work We Contain Multitudes will be placed in the Arts House bathrooms. It sheds light on memory, bacteria, disease control, and the question: “Who gets the vaccine?”. Their responses in this interview are collaborative.
Tell us a little about why the area of health and disease is one that resonates with you as artists.
We have an ongoing research interest in the themes of existential risk – the four sonic metaphors of bang, crunch, shriek, and whimper as coined by the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk team in the United Kingdom – as ways to categorise the manner in which human species may end.
We don’t often consider art to be a response to medical threats. Why do you think art can be an effective way to educate the world about dangerous pandemics?
We think art is an abstract form that allows new forms of thought, experience, and futures to be made.
It is also dangerous to think about art as a tool. We prefer to think that there is something to be understood both in the process and experience of an artwork, which allows new possibilities to emerge.
What is We Contain Multitudes all about, and how does it fit in with the ideas underpinning this broader project?
We Contain Multitudes is a work that is made for an audience member while they wash their hands in the bathroom. It is a semi-intelligent interaction, which asks questions about disease and dying; and allows space for an audience to reflect on these questions, and to ask their own.
Your audio-visual work covers various topics, from disease control to bacteria and vaccines. What were the biggest challenges in translating these themes into a work of art?
We feel as if it is our job as artists is to absorb contemporary influence, thought, concern; and to imagine a form that is possible in response. This form needs space to develop, and actually is unknown at the start of the process.
Practice requires time, a being with materials, and in a way this is the greatest challenge.
What did you learn about pandemics through your own work? And did you work with any scientists or specialists along the way?
We had the great pleasure of undertaking two residencies as part of the creative development process of this project. The first was at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, and the second at the Melbourne General Cemetery.
At both these sites, we spent many hours in recorded conversations with specialists across all aspects of research into disease, immunity and death. These communities were very open and welcoming to us, and their input is indelibly marked upon the work. In fact, the work would not exist without them.
What’s the main message you’d like audiences to take away? Is it about thinking how to plan for a pandemic, is it about breaking stigma, or is it a way to encourage people to take further research?
The work sets forth a set of questions, and we hope that an audience will respond. We are still in the process of making this work, which opens next week, and until we put the work onsite we actually are never sure what we have made. An audience reveals the work to us.
Any parting words?
An audio-led experience is a compositional task across all the forms, and while there may not actually be any music in this work, we hope that the work is heard. It is also an absurd experience.
We Contain Multitudes is produced by Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey in collaboration with Live Umbrella Finland for Refuge 2018: Pandemic. It will be installed in the North Melbourne Town Hall from 30 August to 1 September. Find out more on the Arts House website.
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