[-empyre-] another year...

[Melinda Rackham]

Hi there empyre, 

thank you for the invite to post, as like Tracy and Simon I’m a bit of lurker these days. Not that I’m away from the computer, rather I’m immersed in acquiring new bodies of knowledge for my various writing projects. So much to discover, such little time. Thank you to the people who've posted already  - great to see what u are up to. 

Im just at the pointy end of "Catherine Truman: Touching Distance”  - a monograph with many lovely big pictures on the 35 year interdisciplinary practice of Catherine Truman. Initially  as  jeweller/carver working in the sensuous interiors of the body, ( slides- I’d forgotten about old media!) studying anatomical collections around the world, and, who has for the past decade been embedded in neurological research laboratories working with scientists.  She continually questions how we see, construct, touch and interact with the world.  Due out in June/July with a launch in Adelaide at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and in Amsterdam later in 2016.

Still pottering along on Attachment— my memoir around Forced Adoption and its consequence for mother and child and future generations. Our Steering Comittee have just commissioned artists to start the construction process of a large back granite Forced Adoptions memorial situated in the River parklands behind Adelaide University, which will be opened mid 2016 with an yet to be planned event.
 
I’m loving Beastly - an experimental writing group with the very talented Francesca di Rimini and Ros Prosser. We write across genres and technologies, meet and read and talk --- challenging and nourishing.

I’ll be doing a 3 month residency mid year at Saubier House, a 1860’s farmhouse on an estuary of the Onkaparinga River in Port Noralunga. Situated in what was a culturally and resource rich Aboriginal meeting place, I’ll be writing directly onto/scratching into the buildings internal walls, the experience of dislocation and alienation and various other madnesses of a white women there 150 years ago. 

More projects are bubbling away about art and water, refugees, interventions, tradition…etc. I will be setting up another studio on the far South Coast where hopefully I'll get time to play with actual things other than keyboards.

On the home front I’m expanding my fur family of "only cat" 5 year old Mr Jones, with young Gunsmoke Grey, a cheeky Korat stray who appears for dinner on our front verandah each night. Its a joy to see an animal who was starving have regular food. I’m within 2 ft of him/her now so its an ongoing process to touching distance.

I plan to be in Scotland, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark later in the year so hope to catch up with some of you.

 warm regards from one of the the hottest cities on earth
 
Melinda