Christine Borland, Conservatory, 2004
Engraved porcelain, skeleton/fragmented, wooden shelves, glass

Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

This image is not to be reproduced further, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise with out the prior permission of the artist

I visited Christine Borland's exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia after the excitement and activity of the Adelaide Festival had finally come to an end. I had spent the morning playing frisbee with friends in a local park and the quiet of a contemporary art space seemed to me like the perfect way to spend a (once again) lazy Sunday afternoon. To be honest though, I didn't know what to expect. The blurb in the Adelaide Festival Visual Arts program informed me that Borland was a Scottish artist and that her recent works 'explored an understanding of human life, raising issues of both ethics and aesthetics', and that 'she negotiates complicated subject matter, particularly in the field of forensics and natural history'. I was a little hesitant. My greatest fear of late is looking at artwork that has no soul. Although big on theory, process and technique, this work often fails to engage with the viewer, resulting in that terribly unsettling feeling that 'something was missing'. I looked to the accompanying image for reassurance and was helped in no way by bulbous-looking glass vessels housing bleached and preserved plants.

But I need not have worried. Borland's work was beautiful and even more than that, it made me want to spend time with it and indeed, re-visit it. The front two galleries of the CACSA displayed Borland's colour photographs from The Velocity of Drops (2003) series and the back gallery housed her 'sculptural' work Conservatory (2004). I always make a point of not reading the catalogue essay when wandering through an exhibition because I like to try and think my own thoughts. It means I run the risk of not always getting it right (which has happened more times than I would like to admit) but most often it means that my experience of the work becomes an even more intimate one, not influenced by third-party perspective or opinion. So I gave it my best shot.

Borland's photographs are luscious in presentation, style and content. Their colour is deep and sensual and captures the stately grandeur of the mansion that they document. Each photograph is framed in stark black and sits in a set of four with each set titled for the location they depict – Middle Ward , Medical Ward , Operating Theatre, Dispensary, Surgical Ward, X-Ray Room and Staircase. In each photograph, a watermelon has been dropped and rests in more than one piece, on either polished floorboards, tiles or marbled steps, with pink flesh exposed and juice running from its middle. These scenes are so intriguing because I wonder what happened. And because it is human nature, I spend quite some time observing each photograph closely, looking for clues in the furniture and crushed pulp.

The stillness in each scene is overwhelming even though it is obvious that something out of the ordinary has recently taken place. There are no figures in the photographs and this only adds to the silence of the setting. Imagine though if this watermelon was a person and if those walls could talk, what would they say? Geraldine Barlow's catalogue essay (I couldn't help myself) let me know that this body of work (as well as Conservatory) was developed out of the artist's 2003 residency at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute off the west coast of Scotland . It goes on to say that 'during the First World War the estate was offered by the Stuart family for use as a naval hospital and received patients recovering from the great sea battles of the day'. This would thus explain Borland's use of medical terms for rooms that today are used as the library or sitting room. These photographs represent a time in history when human experience and emotion was magnified by the events and circumstances that surrounded them. In a sense we bare witness to these experiences and emotions through the evidence that Borland has uncovered. And through the most unlikely subject of a watermelon we are invited to ponder past tragedies and losses so that we may better understand the present.

It seems fitting that The Velocity of Drops should be exhibited in the CACSA, itself a rather striking home with a colourful past built around the turn of the century. This building was a domestic dwelling for many years before it was bought by the Contemporary Art Society of South Australia and converted into a gallery around the 1940s. Its most striking feature up until recently was its polished floorboards which have now been covered with a floating floor painted basalt grey. It changes the mood of the gallery and greatly compliments Borland's works. The gallery's clean interior is reflected in the photographs and the stark contrast of grey floor and white walls adds to the strong geometric composition that Borland employs. And it is yet another instance in which I wonder what these walls would say if they could talk.

Conservatory is made up of cast porcelain bone fragments engraved with seaweed patterns sitting on a narrow glass-topped wooden shelf. Another quick glance at the catalogue reveals that Borland's 'research also draws upon time spent on Orkney, a group of islands at the top of Scotland, far to the north of Bute'. It goes on to say that it was here that the 'German naval fleet of the First World War was impounded, before the captured sailors scuttled the bulk of their ships and made a daring escape from activity'. Borland's porcelain bones thus represent the flotsam and jetsam that one may find washed up on the shore. They point to the past through the artist's research of an historic event and create a narrative in part based on this fact and in part based on imagination. Inspecting these tiny forms up close is akin to searching for shapes in the clouds and very much like trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle. In every instance, one tries to ascribe a story to that which is revealed.

This collection of bone fragments makes me think of many things. I am reminded of Jenny Holzer's exhibition at the University of South Australia Art Museum for the 1998 Telstra Adelaide Festival in which a large number of bones were carefully laid on tables. Each bone was placed according to size and type and some had metal tags that were inscribed with text. I also think of the time my friend's youngest son found a small animal's skull in the nearby vacant lot and the way in which he took it home and kept it wrapped in tissues for weeks afterwards. He treated it as a treasure and would only show it to people if they promised not to touch it. And I think of how strongly my father objects to the idea of cremation. I can only guess because of a fear of the unknown, or of being reduced to dust. Borland's bone fragments signify the cycle of life and these personal memories recall the fragility of this cycle. In each instance death means something different. To Holzer the bones represent the many women who have died violently during the course of war. To my friend's son, death is a fascinating object to be handled with care and to my father it is something he cannot yet comprehend.

Borland, however, understands this cycle and so uses her subject matter as a symbol for the very fleeting nature of human life. That things begin, continue and end is regarded as a perfectly natural phenomenon. And this pattern of movement is reiterated in her ongoing research, itself borrowing and growing from her past bodies of work. It is no coincidence that the delicate artwork, Ecbolic Garden, Winter (2001), shown in the Festival's Visual Arts program includes plants within its sculptural form, just as the bone fragments of Conservatory do. Borland explores the animal, vegetable and mineral to exact a framework for human experience and emotion. And although Borland's work is concerned with change each component situates itself in a specific moment in time, allowing the artist to gradually build up a map of our histories that tell the stories of how we came about.