...also known as a familiar spirit, an animal supposedly attending a witch.
Playfully investigating subversive human/non-human companionship and witchcraft as anti-capitalist resistance, Makaela Rowe-Fox imagines how the human might serve as ‘familiar’ to the deep-sea squid. Rowe-Fox has crafted her own ‘bioluminescent’ material to invoke and listen to the squid-witch. This speculative concoction requires darkness and minimal artificial light – conditions suited to the squid’s sensory perception – to fluoresce and convey meaning. Familiar performatively documents the process in which the human familiar might invoke the squid-witch by shutting down Western Power, the main source of human-made light in the region.
This body of work was presented apart of FAM+23 at Cullity Gallery, the UWA Fine Arts graduate exhibition. Please get in touch to read the work's accompanying thesis, titled 'Familiar; Investigating Radical Human Attendance to the Deep-Sea Squid'.
Find the exhibition catalogue here.
Familiar series
Familiar #1. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Victoire Hemedi. 20x30 inches.
Familiar #2. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Victoire Hemedi. 20x30 inches.
Familiar #3. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Victoire Hemedi. 20x30 inches.
Hex series
Hex #1. 2023. Photographic print; Victoire Hemedi at East Perth terminal substation. 15x15 inches.
Hex #2. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Makaela Rowe-Fox, camera assistance from Jimi DePriest. 15x15 inches.
Hex #3. 2023. Photographic print; Makaela Rowe-Fox at East Perth terminal substation, camera support from Victoire Hemedi. 15x15 inches.
Hex #4. 2023. Photographic print; ‘Western Power’ logo. 15x15 inches.
Hex #5. 2023. Photographic print; Makaela Rowe-Fox at East Perth terminal substation, camera assistance from Victoire Hemedi. 15x15 inches.
Hex #6. 2023. Photographic print; Victoire Hemedi at East Perth terminal substation. 15x15 inches.
Hex #7. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Makaela Rowe-Fox, camera assistance from Jimi DePriest. 15x15 inches.
Hex #8. 2023. Photographic print; Victoire Hemedi at East Perth terminal substation with bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots). 15x15 inches.
Invocation. 2023. Photographic print; Makaela Rowe-Fox and Victoire Hemedi at South Beach, Fremantle, camera assistance from Samrael. 15x15 iches.
Familiar #1 - #3 Photographic prints; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Victoire Hemedi. 76x50cm.
Hex #1 - #8 Photographic prints; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots), featuring Makaela Rowe-Fox, Victoire Hemedi. Camera assistance from Victoire Hemedi and Jimi DePriest. 38x38cm.
Invocation Photographic print; Makaela Rowe-Fox and Victoire Hemedi at South Beach, Fremantle, camera assistance from Samrael. 38x38cm.
Terminal Substation Map (Targets) Laser etching on black acrylic of Perth metropolitan electricity grid with bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) marking the terminal substations. Technical assistance from Reegan Jackson. 85x120cm.
