Tessa Campbell Fraser: Whales – A Deeper Dialogue

About

Three monumental sculptures of sperm whales will hang from the roof of the tithe barn. The open timbers and roofbeams of the barn are reminiscent of an upturned boat, carrying subliminal associations with the industrial scale whaling which reduced sperm whale numbers to critical levels in the 19th century, when their waxy spermaceti oil famously oiled the wheels of the Industrial Revolution. The sculptures offer a response to the environment whereby the viewer becomes immersed into an imaginative world of the whale whilst the surroundings reflect man’s increasing ecological impact on the world’s climate.

Campbell Fraser deliberately seeks out and employs sustainable, natural, recycled or repurposed materials. In this exhibition she is using recycled ghost netting, silk chiffon, latex, and synthetic (recycled) paper, made with almost no water. Using haptic techniques with these materials, she creates fluid, protean pieces in two-and three-dimensional forms to explain the dialogue between herself and nature.

Campbell Fraser’s exhibition is inspired by both the exploration of interspecies communication through decoding together with her own immersive experience swimming with the whales in Domenica. 

Campbell Fraser is fascinated by the potential of scientific decoding, “the enormity of the breakthrough to mankind if we really can have an interspecies conversation – it could reshape how we coexist with nature.”