Artspace

Rochelle Haley

For 52 ACTIONS I present an alternative view of my work EVER SUN and its accompanying performance, which took place on 25 Jan 2021 at Wilmot Street in Sydney’s CBD. EVER SUN is a suspended installation that opens this public space to a sensitive play of light that changes constantly throughout the day, responding to the mood of the weather and natural environment. The artwork contributes an uplifting sense of colour, luminosity, passage, and hope for the city. It was commissioned by the City of Sydney for the City Art Laneways program 2021, and originally commissioned by Performance Space for Liveworks 2020.

Extending the lines and growing into the gaps of the installation, a dance performance was developed with collaborators, choreographers and friends Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn, who performed alongside Alice Weber, David Huggins and Patricia Wood. The first of two public performances activated the artwork and city lane, drawing people to visit the area at different times of day to experience the work changing with the sun.

The work’s strong sunset palette is enhanced by the long beams of actual sunlight flooding Wilmot Street in its East-West orientation. EVER SUN reflects the arches from nearby city architecture and other points of visual connection with sightlines of the street. These forms are extended into unique costumes made by workshopping shapes, colours and compositions with costume designer Leah Giblin.

By emphasising changes in natural light, the work is a reminder of life’s cycles – as constant and spectacular as the rising and setting of the sun. EVER SUN offers an inspiring space to walk and reflect, feel nurtured by colour and light, and be together, sensitively, in a way that reminds us of the resilience, necessity and beauty of art.

Artist bio

Rochelle Haley is an artist working on Gadigal and Bediagal lands. Her practice is engaged with painting, installation and movement to explore relationships between bodies and physical environments. Working with dancers and choreographers, her painting installation and performance works investigate space structured around the sensation of the moving body. Haley is interested in expanding the colour field of painting and exploring the intersection between the body, architecture and abstraction, experimenting with the boundaries of disciplines to discover how movement of bodies can be expressed and felt by audiences.

Haley lectures in painting and drawing at UNSW Art & Design, where she completed a PhD in 2009. She is currently involved in international research projects ‘Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum’ and ‘Dancing with the Non-Human; the Aesthetics of Encounter’, contributing her expertise in the convergences between visual arts and dance in gallery contexts.

In 2020 Rochelle was selected as an Artspace One Year Studio Artist. Her major commission EVER SUN was presented by Performance Space in Carriageworks' Public Space for Liveworks 2020, and re-commissioned by City of Sydney for the Laneways Art Program 2021.

01.02.2021

EVER SUN is a suspended installation and performance by artist Rochelle Haley that opens up public space to a sensitive play of light. Responsive to the mood of the weather, the artwork contributes an uplifting sense of colour, luminosity, passage and hope for the city.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

Studio Assistants: Sophie Lane, Monika Zaper, Lisa Myeong-Joo and Ra Bull

Productions Manager: EPPRO

02.02.2021

On 25 Jan 2021 Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber, Ange Goh and Ivey Wawn performed beneath the floating installation EVER SUN for passers-by and a group on an informal walking tour of the City of Sydney City Art Laneways works. This was the first of two live performances to activate the work.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

03.02.2021

EVER SUN interweaves art, choreography and costume to create changing compositions of colour and form. Designer Leah Giblin workshopped the costumes with Rochelle Haley, Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber, Ivey Wawn and Angela Goh as part of the choreographic process.

Video: City of Sydney
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

04.02.2021

Rochelle Haley has collaborated with choreographers and performers Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn for many years. Alongside work and friendship, they have developed intuitive and critical practices that experiment with connections between painting and choreography. Throughout 2020 Ange, Ivey and Rochelle workshopped these ideas in Rochelle’s Artspace studio. The performance of EVER SUN presents a version of these experimental practices, developed specifically for the artwork at this public CBD site.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

05.02.2021

Pace, scale, overlap, repetition, synchronicity, shadow, and positive and negative forms are explored in the performance and installation EVER SUN.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

06.02.2021

Details of EVER SUN reveal the subtle interplay of light, colour, shadow, wind, bodies and space.

Video: City of Sydney
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

Lifting and falling - EVER SUN presents tensions between forces of movement and stillness, flatness and form, contraction and expansion, points of view and envelopment.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

Moments of coincidence paint abstract pictures across bodies in EVER SUN. The detail, precision and collision of colours in the costumes by Leah Giblin connect and reflect the installation’s colourful veils.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

07.02.2021

The choreographic process of EVER SUN incorporates scaling and measuring techniques from painting , to emphasise the relation between the body and the subject from multiple points of view.

Video: City of Sydney
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin

Each performer’s point of view and exploration of perspective is embedded in EVER SUN. The installation invites spectators to find visual alignments and relations of their own as they wander beneath the veils of colourful beads.

Photo: Jessica Maurer
Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn
Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin