beverley southcott—garden city
"I shopped with reckless abandon, I shopped for immediate needs and distant contingencies. I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it. I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums. These sums poured off my skin like so much rain. These sums in fact came back to me in the form of existential credit" (Delillo, White Noise, 1984).
Spirituality in the context of globalisation and economic rationalism is a theme that has been addressed by a number of important exhibitions in Australia, among them Spirit + Place: Art in Australia 1861-1996 curated in 1996 by Nick Waterlow and Ross Mellick for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Taking her cue from Spirit + Place, Adelaide based visual artist Beverley Southcott, in her recent exhibition Garden City, explored the relationship between spirituality and consumerism in the context of the corporate culture of the urban and suburban environment.
Beverley Southcott subscribes to a form of spirituality that, as she explains, is 'not necessarily a religious doctrine that is strictly adhered to, but can be seen as a private, quiet sense of place for spiritual reflection' . Southcott's meditative spirituality 'is about living in the present and being reflective in daily activities and actions'. Her research and art explore this secular spirituality as a quiet space of reflection in the context of a late capitalist environment marked by consumerism and the rapid proliferation of information. Working across the mediums of photography, painting and mixed-media installations (the latter concocted from a range of manufactured objects, including safety lights, jewellery cases