Justene Williams, “The Curtain Breathed Deeply” at MUMA

The gentle hush and hum of the electric fans that whir nearby and the chill they generate in the air sends a ripple of goose bumps across my flesh as I approach the curtain. Softly flapping, the curtain moves and stirs, beckoning me closer, and as I step inside the cordoned off area obscured by these great curtains, I wander further away from the world and pass into another; the world of Justine Williams and her current exhibit, ‘The Curtain Breathed Deeply.’ A thorough and unique collection of film and video works based around various moments in her life, Williams’ exhibit is an exploration of the thresholds between the energy of one realm and another. The manifesto at the entrance of the exhibit briefly explains how the exhibit is a tribute to her late father, who suffered a slow death from mesothelioma behind a fluttering hospital curtain that obscured his passage from this world into the next. Armed with this knowledge, I braced myself and submitted myself to the works of Justene Williams. At once, I am disarmed. An electrical hum buzzes loudly in my ears and reverberates inside my skull. Drawing from many sources, Williams plunders her childhood experiences of dance classes and time spent in her father’s wrecking yard to use all available space within the gallery and filling it with animated screens, vast sheets of plastic, stacks of abandoned cardboard and soft, velveteen felt mushrooms sprouting from bulbous garbage bags. The collision of rich colour, pattern and texture on screen jars with the nostalgic, familiar images of Australiana that litter the childhood landscape of both Williams and myself; the backyard garage, inflatable pool and white Ford ute. Walking through this exhibit, the slight disturbance one feels at the eery ambience of the gallery gives way to a realisation that all the obscure and slightly unnerving elements of the exhibit are intrinsically interconnected environments that hold together and breath like a vast and mysterious body. As I wander about, I feel as though the very presence of Williams’s late father is hovering somewhere just over my shoulder, and the stirring in the air form the electric fans feels like breath upon my neck. The tribute to her father feels to me like a re-energising, a resurrection of sorts, and the continuous chanting and drumming from the fluorescent, futuristic shaman dancing upon the blue screens give me the impression that I have stumbled upon a curious and private sarcophagus filled with memories and mementos from the life that was shared between Williams and her father. Kelly Fliedner, who works at the gallery, is passionate about bringing people through the exhibit, which has only previously been shown in Sydney before travelling down to Melbourne, and notes that the piece has mutated and transformed to fill the new space entirely. There was an intimacy and a tenderness amidst the violently flashing screens and bright graphics of the exhibit, and I felt all at once enlightened and depressed by my visit to the gallery. There is a poignancy and a beautiful sadness to this exhibit, and as you exit the exhibit and re-enter the silence, soothing foyer of the gallery, you realise just how prominent and present the sounds and the sights of The Curtain Breathed Deeply are, and that the entire exhibit is a poignant celebration of the life of a loved one, that also takes pleasure in the movement and the life of living, breathing beings. A special thank you to Kelly Fliedner for her kind words and her insightful discussion post gallery viewing. The Curtain Breathed Deeply by Justene Williams is at the Monash University Museum of Art from the 7th of February to the 2nd of April 2015. #TheCurtainBreathedDeeply Words by Made Stuchbery. Photos by Matto Lucas.