featured projects

Nicola Hawkins: Junkosphere

Town: Admiral’s Cove, NL
NLAC Program Funded Under: Professional Project Grants Program
Amount Funded: $3,500

Dates: December 17, 2011 – April 15, 2012
Venue: Level 4, The Rooms, 9 Bonaventure Avenue,
St. John’s, NL

Hours:

• Monday: Closed
• Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Thursday - Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
  
  

Artist Contact: Nicola Hawkins
Artist E-mail: pagodaprojects@nf.sympatico.ca

Nicola Hawkins is many things – traveler, visual artist, choreographer, environmentalist, dancer – naming just a few. Hawkins has drawn on her varied experiences and the resources around her to create Junkosphere. Her incredibly fertile imagination and her adroit ability to re-purpose the castoffs of our consumer society have inspired a collection of work that is original mixed-media with a message. Assemblage sculptures using everything from paints to photographs present intricate, inventive narratives that simultaneously amaze and alarm.

The name Junkosphere is a Hawkins-coined term for the biosphere - the narrow zone of our planet that is home to all life. Hawkins’ images reflect the fragility of the living world, powerfully communicating her deep personal dismay at humanity's devastating impact on the environment. At first glance, the works’ large scale, complexity and playfulness capture your attention. “Our waste doesn’t leave the planet – it is still here, all around us, we just choose not to see it,” Hawkins explains. The exhibition is intent on raising serious questions through the artwork, thoughtfully pointing to the imperative of changing the way we live.

Nicola Hawkins, born in England, moved from Boston to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2006. She lives and works in the quiet of a renovated church in Admiral's Cove, on the Avalon Peninsula’s southern shore.

Q and A with Nicola Hawkins...

NLAC: First of all Nicola, what drew you to emigrate to Newfoundland and Labrador?

Nicola: The unspoilt dramatic landscape; the opportunity to live in a rural place with a unique character that isn’t subsumed by a homogenous consumer culture.

NLAC: What kinds of serious questions did you want to raise with Junkosphere?

Nicola: I wanted to explore the impact that consumer culture has on the planet; our deluded idea that stuff brings satisfaction. The dream that if we have a bigger house, newer car, a new dress and lather ourselves with snake oils we will be happier and be seen as successful. I wanted to show how the waste of this insatiable consumerism doesn't just disappear; it ends up in landfills, in the ocean, as pollution in the air. Our waste doesn't leave the planet - it is still here all around us, we just choose not to see it. Tragically and inexcusably, we export some of the worst of it to poorer countries.

NLAC: What was your experience creating your artwork here like?

Nicola: It was easy and relaxed. Living in a peaceful environment with few distractions gave me a chance to face the ugliness of our consumer culture, to take it on and really look deeply at how I participate in it and how that can change. The drama and beauty of my physical surroundings re-charged my emotional batteries after hours of work, dealing with North American commercial imagery and thinking of the effects this has on the planet.

NLAC: Did the place have any effect on the results for this project in terms of what was available to you?

Nicola: Absolutely, I had access to my local dump and thereby a uniquely rich palette of colours, shapes, and textures. I liberated old books, car parts, tins, computers, TV’s, anything you could dream of. I brought it home to become part of my Junkosphere. I have never been attracted to the “artist materials” on store shelves. Finding new uses for materials readily at hand is very exciting to me. I would say the found materials from the dump had a huge influence on the look of the Junkosphere sculptures. If I’d made this sculpture 50 years ago or 50 years in the future it would look different. Inevitably the work is a reflection of society at this moment.

Because the work is large scale, having the use of the studio at The Rooms was crucial. I started the work at home but at a certain point I needed the space to put the various parts of the sculptures together and assemble the 2D works that were made in smaller panels.

NLAC: Is there any piece in the collection you particularly love, and why?

Nicola: I see the individual works as parts of a larger whole so it's hard for me to pick a single favourite. Having said that Value Added? is important to me because in some respects it includes all the themes of the other works: pollution, over-consumption, inequality, wasted resources, egotism. It's also one of the few that has a place of refuge in it. In its centre there’s a man sitting in the woods, at peace with the rain falling on him.

NLAC: What was the most enjoyable aspect of the process for you?

Nicola: Collaborating with Andy Perlis and curator Caroline Stone was really enjoyable. I’m by nature a hermit. But I had great fun brain storming and laughing with Andy and Caroline.

NLAC: What did you learn from your project, technically or through the subject matter?

Nicola: I love the challenge of being self-sufficient in my life. However this project has taught me that working with others doesn't dilute the mix but instead brings discoveries, often new, easier ways of getting things done.

NLAC: This is your first installation at The Rooms and a solo show, were you daunted about where your work was headed and the volume you had to create during the process?

Nicola: No I was never daunted. I had been thinking about the project for a while so when the opportunity came I went ahead with gusto. Having the chance to show in a public gallery was a huge joy for me. Of course we're all afflicted with doubts but mine don't arise in relation to my art practise; that is the place I feel most conviction.

NLAC: Is there anything you would like to add?

Nicola: I would like to acknowledge that although I work quietly and privately I am acutely aware that art is created within a community. This work came out of living in Newfoundland and Labrador. My community of Admiral's Cove, my friends and the cultural institutions, all which make up the passion of this place, have given me a rock on which to create Junkosphere.