Fiona Hall
Learning Resource
Fiona Hall, Fern Garden, 1998, Purchased with the assistance of Friends of Tamsin and Deuchar Davy, in their memory, 1998 © Fiona Hall
A lot of my work for a long time was indivisible between what it was made of and what it was. The substance itself carries the loading of the meaning and of the conceptualisation of the work so the substance is almost of equal importance to what I did with it. In some cases, it is almost entirely equal in importance. The substance is the work, and the work is the substance.1
Fiona Hall
Fern Garden
Fiona Hall, Fern Garden, 1998, Purchased with the assistance of Friends of Tamsin and Deuchar Davy, in their memory, 1998 © Fiona Hall
Fiona Hall Fern Garden (1998) Purchased with the assistance of Friends of Tamsin and Deuchar Davy, in their memory, 1998.
Fern garden is in part a place of reconnection and remembering and, like so many great gardens around the world, it is a sanctuary for reflection. Since the garden was first established, the tree ferns have continued to develop in their own distinctive ways.2
Living and evolving over time, Fiona Hall’s first major site-specific installation, Fern Garden was commissioned by the National Gallery in 1996 and features an abundance of Dicksonia antarctica tree ferns, one of our continents’ most ancient plants. Fern Garden transformed a previously unused ‘courtyard’, bounded by the Gallery’s towering concrete walls, into an inviting place for interaction and contemplation.
To enter Fern Garden, visitors pass through curvilinear steel gates based on a diagram of the female reproductive system, marking a point of transition, and offering the sense of a fertile, womb-like space within. Drawing connections between plant-forms and the human body, the gates are a reminder of our own intrinsic relationship with nature.
For most of us living in a world of manufactured products we tend to think that we are looking out at nature and forget that we are nature.3
Beneath a canopy of arching tree ferns, spiraling, pebbled paths echo the form of an individual fern frond, a symbol of healing and rejuvenation4, leading visitors around the space and towards a central, below-ground fountain. The flowing, circuitous route supports an experience of slowing down and pausing to consider details and references embedded along the path. Significantly, pavers inscribed with First Nations language groups and names for the tree fern, serve to recognise First Nations cultures and knowledges.
Fiona Hall Fern garden 1998 Purchased with the assistance of Friends of Tamsin and Deuchar Davy, in their memory, 1998 © Fiona Hall
Fiona Hall
Fiona Hall was born in 1953 in Warrang/Sydney and lives and works in Nipaluna/Hobart. Hall is one of Australia’s most distinguished and innovative contemporary artists, she is best known for transforming diverse, everyday materials into vital organic forms with both historical and contemporary resonances.
Hall studied painting at the National Art School, Sydney in the 1970s and came to prominence as a photographer, but her practice has since extended across a broad range of mediums including sculpture, installation, moving image and garden design, often employing forms and systems of museological display. Hall’s sculptures are characterised by their intricate construction and thematic resonance with issues of environmentalism, globalisation, war, and conflict.5
Fiona Hall sees gardens as being, essentially, about the relationship between the body and the natural world, and that the use of space in the world through architecture and gardens is a history of how people relate to the world around them at the most fundamental level.6
I don’t think an artist can change the world with their work, but I do think artists are game changers. I think artists are like litmus paper, not just visual artists. Actually artists and scientists both are like litmus paper—they give a sense of where things are.7
Provocations
- In what ways has Fiona Hall considered audience as part of her garden design – do you see potential for immersion, interaction or other kinds of engagement?
- Consider the first quote from Fiona Hall, does this statement by Hall ring true for your work? In what ways could you explore this possibility through the materials you are using in your own artmaking.
- What meanings are attached to the substances or materials that you have selected to use in your own art making? Research their historical, cultural and practical applications and symbolism. You might also investigate their composition, lifespan and environmental impact.
Prompts
- What are the key concepts behind your major work of art? How might these be represented in material, form, structure or process, as a way of furthering your engagement with audience and their understanding or connection to the concepts behind your work?
- On a large piece of paper, write down all the conceptual elements in your work.
- Branching out from your conceptual elements, write or draw materials that strongly connect to these concepts, then write or draw forms, structures or processes with the potential to extend these concepts or enhance audience engagement with your work.
- Look over the writing or drawing that you’ve generated and choose 3-5 elements that are the most viable or interesting to you.
- Make a series of small experiments. Do these experiments quickly by working in timed sessions, taking no more than 10 min for each.
- For example, you might experiment with creating variations of the same form using different materials, or you could focus on testing one material and exploring how that material lends itself to unconventional applications or processes.
- Take some time to reflect on the experiments you have completed. What was successful, what was surprising, what is something you would like to take further?
