Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Thoughts, lately.

Walking to work the other day I was thinking about how I feel constantly in contact with friends through the apps and programs I use. And I wonder if it distracts me from constructing something larger.
I often think about my audience and how to record or share something when it comes to instagram, snapchat, and less so now, but still, facebook. I'm not always creating for an audience but it is something on my mind. Quite instantly I can see if people have liked something or responded. It makes me feel like I have made my way into some sort of private/public echo room where I make a sound and listen for the response.

I've always liked my blog because it is a public space yet it feels private. I like that I don't know who reads it, if anyone. It makes me feel more excited to create and write and share things as it is a space for just my voice and it's not filtered into a newsfeed of a limitless number of other voices. With this blog it is less about the posting and response, but more about recording something I am looking at/listening to/watching/making or articulating a thought or idea. In some ways it is cathartic as I work out an idea or share something and then I don't look to the response, but simply move on.
It bothers me that there are gaps in the archive but I have to remind my librarian-side that I can't streamline all my writings and images to one place. I need to allow creativity to happen in different mediums and trying to catalogue all of these could prove to stand in the way of further workings and developments.

I can become very narrowed down on particular things and it is something I am working on to remind myself that I can do different things and work in different ways.


I was also thinking, on this walk to work, how I used to write more poems. The words of some of my particular poems still resonate so clearly in my mind.
I wonder what I would write about now. 
I used to play around with words quite regularly a few years ago but now the written word is a more rare tool for me. I've hardly written a poem in recent times.

I remind myself that I am not going to act the same as I did five years ago. And remind myself that I have not lost anything and that it is good to be growing and changing. 
But, for example, this year I have witnessed myself drift in and out of activities like maintaining a diary. I'm not sure how to feel about this. I value my older diaries so much and I wonder how my current diaries compare. And I also wonder if I should more strictly be enforcing diary-writing for my own well-being. I guess I am in a place where I don't know how I am recording my life if I am recording at all.

I need to stay in touch with myself and be aware of how I'm feeling and acting.


Been thinking a lot the last fortnight about going back to Blackburn and seeing my Grandpa's old house that isn't there any more. I've never had that desire before and have actively avoided going there.

I'm struggling with old griefs and current frustrations. 

Spent a few months dreaming about moving to Castlemaine earlier this year. Another failed romantic notion, I write with jest. Thinking about that country house where I was going to have a quiet time and read and draw and occasionally feel lonely but be in the company and support of a special friend.
I guess I'm yearning for a familiar, quiet and safe space at the moment. And although I'm trying to fall back in love with my house and I do appreciate it, it serves me differently. I don't see it as a refuge. I'd like to try a different space. But there's a bunch of practical reasons why my current house is good and I don't know how to make my choice.
I like my weekly babysitting gig a the moment. It's very calm hanging out with a well-behaved 11 year old. Time to read and draw. Everything moves slowly and is planned out.


Thoughts continue to flow and I want to make more space to think and write about them. Work my way through the griefs and frustrations and figure out the ways I am recording.


Delia Derbyshire - "Falling", from The Dreams (1964)

Monday, July 31, 2017

Invitation to FREE LOVE HURTS at Mailbox Art Space

FREE LOVE HURTS

Bon Mott - Edward Ounapuu - Caroline Phillips - Jennifer Rooke - Callum Royle - Siying Zhou
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2nd August - 2nd September 2017
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Opening night
Thursday 3rd August, 6-8pm

Council of People's Commissars in Smolny Palace, Petrograd, circa December 1917. Alexandra Kollontai at centre, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin to her right. Image in the public domain, colour by Rachel Pearce.

Curated by Rachel Pearce and Andrée Ruggeri

This exhibition asks seven contemporary artists to respond to the radical early Soviet feminist activism of Alexandra Kollontai.

A sexual revolutionary, an author and a diplomat, Kollontai served as one of the first women in the Bolshevik government's inner circle after the 1917 Russian Revolution. She fought female oppression and argued that women’s emancipation should extend to their sexuality, as well as their traditional roles in society. Kollontai felt that marriage was an unnatural constraint upon human behaviour, advocating ‘free love’ instead.

Within the parameters of their individual practices, the seven artists in this exhibition explore the somewhat marginalised figure of Kollontai, manifesting in artwork that reflects both their research and interpretations. Archival material is threaded throughout the exhibition, further inviting an investigation of Kollontai’s contributions in a contemporary context. A limited edition zine available on opening night presents curator Rachel Pearce’s personal response to Kollontai.

As many of Alexandra Kollontai's policies were overturned by Stalin in the 1920s, this exhibition stands as a reminder of feminism's troubled path, and its powerfully optimistic future.


Mailbox Art Space
141-143 Flinders Lane
Melbourne, VIC 3000
AUSTRALIA

Opening hours:
10am – 5.30pm Monday to Friday
10am – 5pm Saturday
11am – 4pm Sunday

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Invitation to A Journal is Written on the Pulse of the Moment

6th June - 16th June

Inline images 1

GALLERY 2:
A Journal is Written on the Pulse of the Moment : Jennifer Rooke.

How is the interior world of a woman, her experience of solitude and relationship to interior spaces, expressed through the language of drawing? Observations and reflections of the everyday are recorded through the diaristic process of drawing as a way to explore broader ideas of the self, art and life.

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Opening Night: Tuesday 6 June. 5:00-7:00pm
Artists Talk: 16 June. 1pm
Image Credit: Bedroom/studio. Jennifer Rooke, drawing installation, 2016
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First Site Gallery is run by RMIT Link Arts and Culture

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Aldi


I've joined a band and we're playing at Visual Bulk in Hobart this Saturday...

Aldi was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946 when they took over their mother’s store in Essen, Germany. Deeply influenced by family friend Walter Benjamin’s experience of the Parisan arcade, Aldi rose to success through a policy of experimentation and continuous revision of its product choices.

In 1960 a rift between the two brothers over the sale of cigarettes brought about a split in the Aldi enterprise and its separation into the the Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd. In doing so, further dividing West Germany along cultural lines in what came to be known unofficially as the Aldi-äquator.

Now years later Aldi fans Hayden Stuart and Robert Domanski joined by avid shopper Jennifer Rooke hope to heal this rupture with a view to using this exaggerated feud as a space in which to imagine a 1) chain of artworks and unpopular pop songs and 2) present a musical stocktake and an audit of their practices.


Art Vs Merch

I'll have my Synths of Desire colouring books on the merch table at Art Vs Music tomorrow night. If you would like to buy a colouring book but can't make it to the gig I also have them available on my very basic big cartel.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Moving

Thinking about writing and how I have been avoiding it lately.
Finding drawing hard. Finding the idea of drawing harder.
Keeping a diary everyday and then not keeping one.
Feeling annoyed at the thought of reflecting on past work.
Not realising how habits and work have shifted and continue to shift.
Untangling myself from doubt and finding new ways to work with writing and drawing.
Reaffirming writing and drawing as my necessary process.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Colouring books

I have three colouring books at the Festival of the Photocopier tomorrow 12-5pm at Melbourne Town Hall. I'm selling them for $18 each. They include A Walk in the Garden, The Bloomsbury Group and Synths of Desire. If you can't make it to the fair but would like to buy one, send me an email at jennifer.eb.rooke@gmail.com