Outside Inn
Goolugatup Heathcote Gallery (Boorloo, WA)
August 2023
*GHÓS-TI-
Proto-Indo-European root meaning “stranger, guest, host,” properly “someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality.”
It forms all or part of: guest; hospice; hospitable; hospital; hospitality; hospodar; host (n.1) “person who receives guests;” host (n.2) “multitude;”w hostage; hostel; hostile; hostility; hostler; hotel; Xenia; xeno-; xenon.
Evidence for its existence provided by words such as: Greek xenos “guest, host, stranger;” Latin hostis, in earlier use “a stranger,” in classical use “an enemy,” hospes “host;” Old Church Slavonic gosti “guest, friend,” gospodi “lord, master;” Old English gæst, “chance comer, a stranger.”
Outside Inn is a modular interspecies realm which can be actualised inside any building. This space calls upon a long-standing human tradition of host-guest responsibility, extending this commitment to the more-than-human world by inviting local critters to feast, take shelter and socialise amongst us. At Goolugatup Heathcote, two gallery windows were left open on a 24/7 basis; the room was then prepared with hay, seed, water and ropes for climbing and perching.
This alignment touches on the reintegration of animals into the formation of who we are. Instead of a puritan ‘re-wilding’ of a contaminated and depleted wilderness with a parade of de-adapted critters, this space seeks out a mutually adaptive coalescence, with humans becoming-host to animals who share our microbiome and grow alongside us.
In an adjoining room a series of works interrogate (via the exploration of animal sound-making) the ongoing behavioural reductionism often applied to other species. One of these works, Common Tongue, is available online here.
View exhibition catalogue here.
The central premise of this exhibition (and specific works within it) were devised and created during a residency in Mpartnwe (Alice Springs) supported and funded by Arts Tasmania.
(Above) A local raven visits the space
