Comfort in dystopia

Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Visitor Host, Theo Coles writes in response to Louise Menzies’ works in group exhibition, Vital Machinery. Nearly four years since the first nationwide announcement declaring COVID-19 a national emergency, Coles describes how Menzies' work transports them back to a time comparable to no other. 

It’s been almost four years since the first nationwide announcement declaring COVID-19 a national emergency, and we were plunged into sudden dystopia of lockdowns, swab tests, and empty supermarket shelves. The echo of that year is still palpable, and the disease still present, but the strange dystopia of that period seems to have faded, living on now in the stories we tell, the art we make, the poetry we write.

A thick layer of fog stretches out before me, wrapping around the school field. Trees border the edges where I will spend the next six weeks of my life walking circles in this square oasis, dry leaves breaking beneath my shoes. I will leave a visible track in the long grass, the only evidence of human life here; the grounds-people have left the lawns untouched, the teachers and students all confined to their homes.

I was lucky in March 2020 - when Aotearoa was thrown into a nationwide lockdown that would see us inside, confined almost entirely to our homes for six weeks - that I found myself next to a landscape of nature and peace, in an otherwise suburban area. When I unlatched the back gate, ducked through the ivy overhead, and found myself in that empty field, I found a peace that had otherwise become foreign to me. I would spend most of my time there walking, but sometimes I’d take a sketchbook and draw the leaves. I’d take the old video camera I got for my 16th birthday and film the sunset. I’d read a book under a tree, underlining passages about hope and fear. My only record of those six weeks is within those walks, those low-quality videos of a peach sky, those sketchbooks and novels now stacked on my shelf.

I’d searched for the peace of that field elsewhere, in the 1pm announcements, watching as the case numbers rose and fell. I’d searched for it in the reports of what was happening overseas. I’d taken virtual tours of art galleries hoping that would bring about the memory of normality, but I longed to experience something tangible, something beyond my screen, to stand centered before a piece of work and sit with it. I’d try to pause on a piece I liked, only for my screen to pixelate. I read poetry, I wrote poetry, I called my grandparents, I taught myself to bake bread, I looked at art books — but nothing brought me the kind of presence and peace that those walks did. It was the only time that I did not feel the impulse to take my phone from my pocket and check, search, scroll, worry, and fear.

Several of Louise Menzies’ works finds roots in photographs of the artist's own lockdown walks and a child’s imitative handwriting, printed on silk and muslin scarves. Upon encountering these works, I found myself transported back to four years ago. A time where the simplicity of nature was the backbone of my sanity. A time of offering my attention to a ribbon of fog, a broken autumn leaf, a sunset. Menzies captures similar intricacies of the natural world in her work; pebbles, a pavement peppered with yellow leaves, layered with a child’s scrawls that add an element of playfulness, of curiosity.  

When I look at these works, they become intertwined with my own experiences. These scarves bring me back to a place of finding fluidity in the stagnant, of seeking peace in the external. And of something that feels inherently childlike, a return of attention to one’s surroundings outdoors, as an escape and a refuge, but as a place of play and exploration, too.

Among these works is one unique to the rest, a simple white background bordered in yellow and printed with a child’s text and emoji note compiled through iPhone auto-suggestions. Various sentiments of “hope you’re doing okay” and “i love you” are interrupted by emojis that often don’t correspond with the text. This piece feels almost a juxtaposition among Menzies other works, but equally, it feels like the perfect accompaniment. For me, it connects to the feeling of the expanses of time between my lockdown walks. I remember surrendering easily to the harsh white light from my phone. I felt a kind of fragility within myself that was childlike; I sent almost exact replicas of the text in this work to my loved ones. My friends and I filled each other's notifications with emojis and “i love yous”, in exchange for a now-forbidden normality of embraces and cups of coffee together. I was struck by how similar my digital communication was during this period, to the child’s note. Messages that felt urgent but caring. I worried for my loved ones’ health and wanted them to know they were cared for. I was afraid and, sometimes birthed from my fear, frivolous in my correspondence.

Menzies' work transports me back to a time comparable to no other. The record of her own experience tying me back to my own. It is something tangible from the intangible. In the wake of another global disaster, I think perhaps it will be works like this I will recall. To remind me of the importance of those walks, of nature, curiosity, and beauty. To remind me to create and take in art when I can. To remind me to reach out, with childlike persistence, to not turn from the world in my fear.

But for now, it is 2024. I stand centered before five works of muslin and silk. I am transported back to a moment in time, to a dystopia I am glad is in the past, but one I am at peace with enough to visit now and again. I stand there for as long as I need, the works clear, no pixels, no layer of fog.

Vital Machinery was exhibited at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga from 25 November 2023 – 25 February 2024.