Melancholy and the Memorial
I remember as a child asking my mother why people say ‘sorry’ when expressing sympathy about the loss of a loved one. Up until then, I had only understood the word ‘sorry’ as a means for apologising for my own wrongdoing; it did not make sense to me that people would use the word when they were not at fault. Of course, I eventually came to understand the word as an expression of sorrow or distress rather than an admission of guilt, but I still often find that it feels inadequate.
Annie Macindoe’s exhibition, Melancholy and the Memorial, deals with the limitations of traditional forms of language in representing loss. The exhibition is a culmination of her Master of Fine Arts research, and presents a body of work consisting of multi-channel text and video installations.
Upon entering the exhibition, the first thing I notice is an ambient drone that engulfs the space. Walking through to the main gallery I see a scattering of twelve floor-mounted monitors that dominate almost half of the room, splitting it lengthways. Six monitors display almost still footage of seemingly empty rooms of a Queenslander house—possibly the artist’s childhood home, as inferred by the work’s title, Halstead St. A static camera captures the changing shadows against tongue and groove walls and wooden floors, and the warm glow of sunlight peaking through open doorways. On the other six monitors, single lines of white text appear and disappear on black screens:
it was quiet
it felt like
you were attached
being compared to
I’ll be back soon
to leave you
you came back
for so long
constantly
to wait
not ready
The