Abbie Read
An exchange: A New Zealand landscape study; a drawing in chalk and charcoal
An exchange: A consideration of trade and of trade-offs; a forage to find what has been gained and what has been lost or substituted. An exchange is a dialogue; a discussion between potent artefacts which hold such histories within. These traitorous wooden objects, instrumental in the destruction of their forest kin as the imperatives of measuring and marking confer an ownership; a claiming. As the natural and endemic are replaced or replicated, the humble plumb bob seeks the true line, an augury of fidelity. Enlisting a limited palette of colour, form and material, I seek to excavate the entwinings and entanglements of this transposed terrain.
1. [Charred wooden block] Non-native timber
2. [Survey mark box] Cast iron survey mark box
3. [Nails] Antique iron nails, carved (lamb and beef) bone
4. [Floorboards] Charred plywood, nails
5. [Antique surveyor’s measuring stick]
6. [Hanging roots and plumb bobs] Copper PLA (plant-based bio-degradable plastic) 3D printed root systems, brass plumb bobs, epoxy clay, metal fixings, twine
7. [Bound boundary pegs] Charred boundary pegs, handmade gesso (rabbit skin glue and calcium carbonate), twine
8. [Tripod and tripod ‘tree’] Antique surveyor’s tripods (charred and uncharred), tree branches, black paint, handmade gesso (rabbit skin glue and calcium carbonate), twine
9. [Floor grid] Nails and twine
Abbie Read 