Johanna Zellmer
Water Vessels
1996-1999
I made this body of work during my Master of Arts (Visual Arts) at the Canberra School of Art, Institute of the Arts, Australian National University. It captures my research into the presentation of water on the table as a precious resource. For this project I etched, raised, formed and anodised vessels out of aluminium road signs, as well as sterling silver and nickel silver. I was invited by Dame Robin White to undertake research in the Republic of Kiribati. The vessel patterns were inspired by fish skin, i Kiribati pandanus weaving and by the movement of stingray. I printed etched plates before forming them into 3D. The graduate exhibition included 10 vessels, a video with footage from Kiribati, prints and Pandanus fibre.
This is a recovered part of a damaged VHS video tape, made during my Postgraduate Diploma at the Canberra School of Art in 1996. I made a set of etched and formed drinking vessels out of aluminium, nickel silver and sterling silver, to present water as a precious resource. I derived patterns from fish skin and printed etched plates before forming them into 3D. My wholehearted thanks go to Robin Murden, who largely shot this video and introduced me to film editing. I'm also grateful to my supervisor Ragnar Hansen.
I made this video as part of my Master of Arts (Visual Arts) at the Canberra School of Art / Institute of the Arts / Australian National University. It describes my research into the presentation of water on the table as a precious resource. For this project I etched, raised, formed and anodised vessels out of aluminium road signs, as well as sterling silver and nickel silver. I was invited by Dame Robin White to undertake research in the Republic of Kiribati, where I shot a large part of the footage. The vessel patterns were inspired by i Kiribati pandanus weaving and by the movement of fish, such as stingray. The video was made possible with the unconditional time, enthusiasm, knowledge and post-production facilities offered by Robin Murden (CMR-ADFA). My wholehearted thanks go out to both Robins, without whom this video wouldn't exist, as well as my studio supervisor Ragnar Hansen, Mike Fudakowski for location support, Gilbert Riedelbauch and John Reid (ANU FieldScreen Programme), Dr John Hooper (Graduate Research additional funding), and the people of Kiribati.