Don't Stare at the Sun/ for Too Long

2019

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Aluminium, ceramic, inherited artefacts, textiles, digital video, mylar foil.

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This major project explores communication and bravery as elemental to resilience. In collaboration with my dad Greg Perejuan, an amateur aviator since he was 16, I built a 1:1 scale facsimile of his ultralight aircraft. The grand gesture is an examination of complicated personal histories, the aircraft symbolising critical points of disruption and connection in my family as well as an overarching drive for adventure that forms a basis for hope.

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Having not seen or flown in the plane since I was 17, I built engine and control components from memory or photographs in ceramics during a residency in Japan at the Shigaraki Ceramic Culture Park, to unite with an accurate structural replica working with dad back in Australia over 6 months. Some parts are functional, the parts I learned proper skills. Other parts are wrong and useless in context, made of totally inappropriate materials; these are the grey areas representing fragmented legacy. The result is still evolving, to which Amy will continue to add, like a family quilt.

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Solo exhibition at PS Artspace, Fremantle Western Australia November 29th - December 19th 2019.

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Please see extended artist statement and exhibition essay by Emma Buswell here.

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