Octopus 23: THE FIELD
Exhibition Poster

Gertrude and Tamsen Hopkinson commissioned writer Tristen Harwood to respond to Octopus 23: THE FIELD. Tristen’s concrete poem of stars acts as the shadow of the exhibition and includes this index:

Caesuras are the only tangible thing / take it or leave it / everything is in short supply and abundance / calories, satellites, megawatts, water, used clothes, telecommunication networks, bandwidth. / There is always an appendix / if you feel untuned, bleh, or charmed.

Put it this way / Susan Howe observes the deceptively simple wording of Emily Dickinson’s beautiful, elliptical poem ‘My Life had stood –a Loaded Gun–’, and writes this down: “definition, seeing rather than perceiving, hearing and not understanding, is only the shadow of meaning” / but I think there’s nothing really wrong with the nothing of shadows / like Angels / shadow boxing / waiting in the shadows / shadows are really enceinte with meaning / they are the content because they are of and not the thing /

I like Susan Howe and the fact that she wants to give all of us a pass on ‘definition’ or what Édouard Glissant might call transparency and he’d give us the crevice, the rupture, too (whose us but me/you(?)) / the shadow is the meaning / like water buffalo in the north are a shade of grey that pleads to be called blue /and thank you.

This text is the shadow of The Field / and because I wanted to make a poster of the stars / so I made a poem this idea of stars could look like / an ideological constellation (obviously) / because / We Don’t Need a Map (2017) directed by Warwick Thornton / talk of the weather is smart / like Waring / you know : /

- Aboriginal English
- Grey paint – Community Based Order
- Fanny Howe
- VL Commodore
- The M-line
- Brindle dogs that live outside
- Infrastructural violence
- Overland colonial
- Ludwig Leichardt
- Isaac Nathan & dawn of Australian music
- Roper River
- The stars you can see in the north
- The stars you can’t see in the south-east
- Mary Ruefle
- Misfits
- Breaking and entering in daylight
(work hours)
 - Alice in Wonderland
- Documentary poetry
- Waring (wombat)

Designed by Narelle Brewer, with installation photography by Amy May Stuart, you can view the digital version of the poster and poem online here. Print versions are available on site at the gallery.