Rocks happy to help: hold down
2017
Medium
colour digital video, silent
Measurements
2 hrs 11 min 46 sec, looped
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2019
© Simone Slee, courtesy of Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
‘I’m really interested in this idea of helping because of the idea that helping is an act of agency that is enabling of other things.’ – Simone Slee
In this video work, Simone Slee performs within a natural landscape over an extended period of time. As she balances between a rock and an unsteady plywood band, she becomes part of a sculptural assemblage in a way that shows how reliant her body is on the structures around her to maintain balance. The work deals with ideas of gravity, but also, as the title suggests, the question of how an inanimate object such as a rock can offer physical support, and how we all fundamentally rely on nature to enable our very existence.