Bleck is an emerging creative in Newcastle’s contemporary art scene. Their installation for Known | Unknown, Ribbons, challenges gender stereotypes while also being a harrowing documentation of the artist's personal trauma.
Known simply as Bleck, the emerging voice in Newcastle’s creative scene is confirmation that contemporary art doesn’t only exist in capital cities. Their installation Ribbons is currently exhibited at Newcastle’s ‘The Lock Up’, a 19th century police cell reimagined as an art space, part of ‘Known | Unknown’. The exhibition features artists who use their own bodies to ‘explore notions of personal, cultural and social identity.’
Bleck explored the themes of identity and the body as a trans-feminine artist last year in Sam Matthews’ ABC series, Art Bites: Unboxed. In many ways Ribbons is a continuation of the ideas examined in Unboxed –and its accompanying interview–but it’s also a departure from the artist’s previous work.
Ribbons is a sensory immersive experience. The audience are beckoned by the glowing light of a projection screen in an empty room; littered with pink ribbons. The video shows the artist cutting themselves from the ribbons which they are bound. It’s distressing; the eerie, abandoned warehouse setting is similar to the cold concrete-floored jail cell that the work is featured in. The comparison is not accidental, Ribbons is displayed in the women’s cell of a former police station. Bleck tangles the history of the gallery with their own narrative of confinement and release. Quiet ambient sounds of dripping water and slicing scissors dominate the soundscape, while juxtaposing a silent detached visual. The effect is a resonating feeling of the artists internal struggle, their eyes looking out of frame not connecting with the audience: not asking to be saved, but just to bear witness. Towards the end of the film, Bleck’s voice swells unexpectedly with a melodic and sombre vocalisation. The essence of the sound is neither triumphant nor distraught but, like the pink ribbons which are strewn around the space, are a ceaseless reminder of the past.
Ribbons is a sensory immersive experience. The audience are beckoned by the glowing light of a projection screen in an empty room; littered with pink ribbons. The video shows the artist cutting themselves from the ribbons which they are bound. It’s distressing; the eerie, abandoned warehouse setting is similar to the cold concrete-floored jail cell that the work is featured in. The comparison is not accidental, Ribbons is displayed in the women’s cell of a former police station. Bleck tangles the history of the gallery with their own narrative of confinement and release. Quiet ambient sounds of dripping water and slicing scissors dominate the soundscape, while juxtaposing a silent detached visual. The effect is a resonating feeling of the artists internal struggle, their eyes looking out of frame not connecting with the audience: not asking to be saved, but just to bear witness. Towards the end of the film, Bleck’s voice swells unexpectedly with a melodic and sombre vocalisation. The essence of the sound is neither triumphant nor distraught but, like the pink ribbons which are strewn around the space, are a ceaseless reminder of the past.
Following the trail of ribbons, the audience are lured into the second room which contains the artefacts seen in the film. The scissors which released the artist are thrust defiantly into the stool. On a plinth, the corset which also constricted the artist lays open like a carcass; bleeding the ribbons which are found around the installation. From the folds of the fabric burst dried thistles, a prickly indication that these forsaken items are fragments of an event which happened long ago. Ribbons is bold. In current political and social spaces, the rights and identities of trans-people are being discussed more openly than ever before. Ribbons doesn’t ask the audience to certify the artists experience, it tells them to. Instead, questioning the viewer to determine whether or not there can be beauty found in the trauma.
Ribbons was exhibited as a part of ‘Known | Unknown’ at The Lock Up (Newcastle, NSW) from the 6th of April to the 26th of May 2019. Bleck can be found on Instagram @allbleckeverything.