02.24.2013

Anne Ferran

Sydney, Australia | by Lisa Blas

February 24, 2013

Anne Ferran’s live/work studio is located in the Darlinghurst neighborhood in central Sydney, in a beautiful early twentieth century building. We decided to meet there after the Together < > Apart conference concluded, and it turned out to be just a short walk  from the National Art School residency, where I was staying as a guest. Upon entering,  the winter light flooded her space and I encountered panorama views of the city beyond. There were details throughout that gave me clues as to what I was about to uncover in our future conversations. I focused on a stack of antique English teacups and saucers on a low-lying bench, sitting on top of what appeared to be spiral bound notebooks, journals, and scraps of paper that artists keep around to remind them of an idea, a novel, a place. Next to the teacups was a paperback book entitled Travel Diary, sitting adjacent to a tripod. It appeared to be one of those texts found in a second-hand bookshop, imbued with history and worn with the memory of former readers.
The living room space and studio was divided by a white opaque folding screen, and within her studio, photographs could be found everywhere—leaning against walls, sitting on a large table and mounted on the wall. Delicately crafted books of her photo project, 1-38, sat on a drafting table. Off to the side was a room for computer production and various reminders of upcoming deadlines attached to a sloping clothesline, mirroring the power lines in the distance. In a nearby corner, there was a pile of felt material, in varying shades of blue. Seen from their edges, they looked like blankets, but from afar, they easily could have been layers of paint. Throughout the space, there were books, paintings, ceramic works and what looked like netting material, hanging on the wall like…

Anne Ferran Video