humming . . . Debra Porch 16 March - 30 April 2006

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humming ... concentrates on the invisible space of memory and histories or stories which once appeared visible - but now appear 'real' only in their invisibility.

The installation, which includes a range of textile, manipulated and found objects and DVD/video focuses on memory, mortality and the relationship between 'presence' and 'absence'.

humming ... reflects upon ideas of personal memory and is Debra Porch's final PhD exhibition through the Creative Industries Faculty. Porch has lived in Australia since 1983 but grew up in Chicago, where the temperature can drop as low as -20° and snow regularly engulfs the city.

This frigidity underpins the exhibition, while individual elements are based on fragmented stories from the artist's recollections. Notions of 'presence' and 'absence' are intertwined with objects and images based on actual and imagined events from Porch's past. She has exploited the sparseness and clean lines of the exhibition space to suggest an aura of coldness and detachment.

The tricycle, covered in knitted wool and mohair, can be seen as either wrapped to protect it from the elements or the result of being abandoned outside, left exposed to an icy winter. Similarly Porch's lightboxes resemble large ice-cubes and white wool takes on ice-and-snow overtones.

Objects from the artist's past have been electroplated (a process similar to 'bronzing') and are now rigid items that have been transformed from objects of memorabilia to relics. One can no longer hold the delicate childhood mittens and recall the sense of warmth when wearing them - they are now dark, metallic, cold and stiff. Their form remains yet their content and context have been permanently altered.

Robyn Daw wrote in the accompanying catalogue essay, 'Family, relations, experiences, personal stories of the artist's past are retold; fiction jostles with defined moments that are agreed on as fact, creating energy and argument, and space to endlessly recreate memory and imagination in the present.' The details of Porch's stories are somewhat imprecise, but recognisable. As the exhibition title suggests, the tune is familiar but the words are elusive.