Melissa Laing

Research Project: Defining the Transit Zone: its physical and conceptual parameters, passenger impact and artistic expression

International air travel has redefined both the experience of travel and the conception of border. Transit and border, transit and flying are inextricably entwined. When one flies one transits.


My doctoral research centres around the idea that contemporary air travel is a transit process. That it is entered upon crossing the 'border', (the border as signified by the passenger processing performed by a customs officer, legal departure from a country) and exited upon re-crossing a 'border'. It argues that international air travel has redefined both the experience of travel and the conception of border and that transit and border are inextricably entwined. The process of transit is performed within the 'Transit Zone', which creates its own reality through control of access, identity, time and space, both in the airport and air. The Transit Zone holds within it it's own time and spatial dynamic, which shape the passengers' experience. The impact of this shift from travel to transit is far reaching in our society and has caused a shift in perceptions of how we go from place to place in the world.

My artwork deals with what I consider to be Transit Zones. Spaces, mental states and time periods spent in transit. These range from borders to waiting spaces and encompass the difficult relationship between the romance of travel and the banality of it, the uncertain emotional states of the Transit Zone and the complexity of public space. My work explores how these sites are constructed and how they break down. I look at the how people occupy and negotiate these spaces of transit and/or how they co-opt them for themselves.

Key Publications

2007
'Z/X', Contemporary Landscapes, Issue 3

2006
Philament, online postgraduate magazine http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament/issue9_contents.htm

2002
Physics Room Year Book, Physics Room, New Zealand

2000
'Lest We Forget', Log Illustrated, Issue 11, New Zealand, 2000
ISSN 11742216

1999
Fairy-tales, Exhibition Catalogue, Centre for Metamedia-Plasy, Czech Republic

Conference Participation

2006
Reinventing the Medium, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Trans - A Visual Culture Conference, University of Wisconsin, USA
Critical Animals, Creative Research Symposium, The University of Newcastle - Australia

Exhibitions

2007
Drawing Show, Peloton Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Night Time #1 ,a night of Short Works, Performance Space, Sydney, Australia

2006
Post it, Peloton Gallery, Sydney, Australia
JOC Jewelry Out Of Context, The Muse, Sydney, Australia

2005
Quinta-essentia, PPg Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Armchair Collective, Newspace, Sydney, Australia

2004
A video, a tent and accessories, Rm 103, Auckland, New Zealand
Tourist City, Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Bremen, Germany

2003
Element, DVD release, Berlin, Germany
Harbouring I by Tentline, Damm4, Vienna, Austria
Shifted Rotating Door, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada
International Stopover, Pugh Pugh Barney McGrew Cuthbert Dibble Grubb, Berlin, Germany
Experimental, Museu de Arte Contemporãnea do Ceará, Fortaleza Ceará, Brazil

2002
The City’s Open Spaces, Einsichten Ausblicke, Display Window, Berlin, Germany
Sempur Sursam, Te Manawa, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Ritual Comforters, Collaborative exhibition with Robyn Laing, High St Project, Christchurch, New Zealand

2001
Epic(2), Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand
Starting Now, Four gallery exhibition, Sixty4Steps, Toronto, Canada

2000
The Interior, The Trace, rm212, Auckland, New Zealand
Epic/Episch, Video Screening, Basis Wien, Vienna, Austria
Open Studios, Artists in Residence House, Vienna, Austria
Up and Coming, Articule Gallery, Montreal, Canada

Awards

2005 - 07
University Postgraduate Award, University of Sydney, Australia

2001
Scholarship for Language and Cultural Exchange, Goethe Institute, Berlin, Germany

2001
Huygens Scholarship, Postgraduate Study in the Netherlands, Dutch Art Institute, Enschede, The Netherlands

Residencies

2007
Trinity Grammar School, Artist in Residence, Sydney, Australia

2000
Artists Residency - Federal Chancellery of Austria & UNESCO-ASHBERG Bursaries for Artists - Vienna - Austria

1999
Artists Residency - Centre for Metamedia-Plasy - Czech Republic





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