Slip/Host; Fiona Bowie @ Openspace Victoria

Fiona Bowie’s adult fairy tale Slip/Host is presented in two rooms; one dark and one light. The first is an open bleak, black room, with a door that reveals a room behind that glows with a light of pure light blue and has a fantasy feel to it.

The first room holds the story of the mundane and grey; five black plinths that hold the tale of a chicken’s sad demise. The first plinth holds a life-sized beautiful white chicken, plump pristine and white, holding her head high. The next plinth holds a ball of white feathers, similar in size to the chicken . . . . The third plinth holds a black felt enclosure which is not as much a building as an embrace the way Fiona has gathered and secured the felt. This black enclosure is punctuated with pin pricks of light emitting out of tiny holes in the walls and roof. This must be the processing plant where the chicken is cut into parts and presented to the public for consumption. Next is the restaurant – a charming wooden western style building painted red with warm yellow lights inviting you to come inside, out of dark, cold night. The final plinth presents the bird using blackest humour – a box containing the midriff of a well fed gentleman(?) with a red arrow pointing to the belly . . .

There is a bit of shame in the laughter she provokes with this final development. On the wall projected above this tableaux is a film loop styled in a cartoonish way. The manufacturer, Alan Cumming (the Lump) sits at a table behind a mountain of roast chicken placed at the foreground of the table. We watch as he eats at the table, sleeps at the table and continuously dreams (in the cartoon dream bubble) of eating roast chicken. The pure pastel blue light of the second room is powerfully alluring in contrast to this death and obsessive consumption, and the way if provokes the viewer to reflect on thoughtless habits of consumption . . .

Slip, the second room represents the inner molecular world of the Lump. The sounds of inner digestion combine with the soft voice of Alan Cumming who, this time, is a big head floating in the light blue sky telling a tale of cause and effect within the two realms. He talks of beauty, he talks of scale, consumption and demise. He has a mesmerizing presence in the room because of his location, his enormous scale (here he’s the gargantuan head) and his wonderful gentle eyes which are focussed on either the viewer or the two women in a moon bubble on the adjacent wall.

The installation is made from simple exposed materials (light bulbs, projectors, wires, etc.)which add to the charm of the whole experience. The light fixture that creates the blue world of Slip hangs from the ceiling in the centre celebrating it’s hand made look much like an old-time Christmas tree would. The feeling of this room contrasts well to the black outer room and it’s contents finish the narrative on a calm, philosophical note. The viewer is left in a contemplative frame of mind wondering about the sentient qualities of all levels of life.