When animator and media artist Rose Bond showcased her animation works from her early years when she started by creating miniature drawings on 35mm films, such as Cerridwen’s Gift, I was awed by the intricate efforts she had put in. The whole hand-painted animation was at least eight minutes that I could not imagine how long it took for her to produce the drawings frame-by-frame.

The stories were based on Irish legends which deals with feminist issues. It was my first time encountering works which were done in this method and I was amazed by the creative concept she had came up with.

As she discussed her digital installations to the audience, Bond started to use space into her works as part of a medium to tell a story. By using multiple projections on windows, her works saw architecture as an experiential space for communication. For example in Illumination No.1, the use of architecture and media together as a single medium not only illustrate the events of the building’s history but also reverberate the past better than a museum or a gallery could. In this case, a physical building played the most important role in the whole artwork. It stimulated the audience to rediscover the world in which they live in, which were always prone to be forgotten as urbanisation took place.

I had a small talk with my classmate and I was wondering whether Bond’s intention of using texts in her works were for abstract purposes because both of us had difficulties trying to make the words out due to the ‘pillars’ in between two windows which blocked the moving sentences.

Nevertheless, Bond’s continuous exploration of animation and architecture was a very interesting concept where the building was interpreted as a keepsake box to archive narrative from the past, the present and the future. It was an effective idea of using collective memory to project a site-specific story for the audience to experience them together as a community.

Among her new works, Turangalila was the most beautiful piece I had seen. At first, I was concerned that the orchestra might get overshadowed by the colourful animation but Bond had balanced both out by using the animation as a tool to enhance the richness of sensuality of the ensemble. Instantly, I was reminded of Peter Greenaway’s Wedding at Cana as he presented his reinterpretation of Veronese’s painting using projections.