Louisa Bufarde­ci
every sec­ond is like, for­ev­er, and every year is like 11.3 centimetres

28th June – 28th July 2007
Anna Schwartz Gallery

When placed against a wall, fly­screen flick­ers with moir’s and pat­terns that shift from one per­spec­tive to the next. The illu­sions are remark­able but the real­i­ty of the fab­ric is less inter­est­ing a sim­ple fibre­glass weave gen­er­at­ing a reg­u­lar grid of rec­tan­gles. Into this trick­ery I’ve stitched frag­ments of sound­waves. Each frag­ment is tak­en from an anti-war speech giv­en at a ral­ly in Ade­laide in Sep­tem­ber last year and the text of each frag­ment is not­ed in the title of the piece. The title of every piece also notes that each frag­ment has been accred­it­ed to a dif­fer­ent, hypo­thet­i­cal anti-war speech from through­out his­to­ry the speak­er, the war, and the place, date and time of the speech are all noted.

So I sit at my stitch­ing frame, head bent far down, chin to chest, stitch­ing, stitch­ing, stitch­ing, and con­sid­er­ing. What do peo­ple do in times of war when they bare­ly appear as such like these days here. What to do when, despite the dai­ly media cov­er­age whose news is as reg­u­lar­ly repet­i­tive as the grid on the fly screen, I feel so removed. And unwill­ing. So I sit and stitch and this action becomes an action of inac­tion, like all my oth­er dai­ly actions. And they become actions of wait­ing where every sec­ond takes for­ev­er and every year is just absurd.

Louisa Bufarde­ci, 2007

Images

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…las…”, Vin­cius, speak­ing against the Argenti­na-Brazil War, Car­men de Patagones, 22 April 1826, 10:39:21:44 — 10:39:21:74, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
34.950 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…oo…”, Kaoru, speak­ing against the Boshin War, Edo, 3 March 1868, 10:55:31:95 — 10:55:32:05, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
12.350 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…so, it is the oppo­site of free­dom…”, Aeneas, speak­ing against the Pelo­pon­nesian War, Athens, 29 Sep­tem­ber 425 BCE, 10:17:37:0810:17:39:78, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
306.150 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…talked…”, Zafeera, speak­ing against the First Jew­ish-Roman War, Gam­la, 28 Octo­ber 66, 17:32:04:22 — 17:32:04:92, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
80.150 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…than a…”, Tset­seg­maa, speak­ing against the Mon­gol inva­sion of Khwarezmia, Zhong­du, 30 May 1219, 08:36:09:16 — 08:36:09:46,, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
34.950 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…than…”, Fari­dah, speak­ing against the Alger­ian War of Inde­pen­dence, Philippeville, 5 August 1955, 20:34:02:11 — 20:34:02:91, 2007
cot­ton thread, flyscreen
91.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…there…”, Zule­ma, speak­ing against the Penin­su­lar War, Bay­onne, 19 Octo­ber 1809, 17:49:54:03 — 17:49:54:63, 2007
cot­ton thread, flyscreen
68.850 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…war was the…”, Enkh, speak­ing against the Mon­gol inva­sions of Japan, Daza­i­fu, 15 June 1275, 7:15:44:23 — 7:15:44:93, 2007
cot­ton thread, flyscreen
80.150 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

any part of this”, Des­ta, speak­ing against the Mus­lim-Chris­t­ian Wars, Mas­sawa, 17 Novem­ber 1530, 8:52:31:27 — 8:52:32:47, 2007
cot­ton thread, fly­screen (detail)

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…d…”, Dar­ius speak­ing against the Lagash and Umma bat­tle, Lagash, 12 Jan­u­ary 2525 BCE, 20:26:41:22 — 20:26:41:23, 2007
cot­ton thread, fibre­glass screen
12.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…thinks that now all…”, Aishen, speak­ing against the Goguryeo-Sui Wars, Pyongyang, 12 March 602, 16:55:23:19 — 16:55:24:79, 2007
cot­ton thread, flyscreen
181.850 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

…to a woman was, we are all pris­on­ers, we are trapped in our hous­es, in our land, in our nation. We are iso­lat­ed and we are left to won­der what’s hap­pen­ing to oth­er peo­ple. What a tragedy…”, Oxil­ia, speak­ing against the Sicil­ian Wars, Syra­cuse, 25 May, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen

Louisa Bufarde­ci

…war was the last thing [they] want­ed. Now three and a half years lat­er we have so many deaths, tor­tures, kid­nap­ping, rapes and vio­lence. It’s absolute­ly uncon­trol­lable. And no mat­ter how many more troops they bring in, this is not chang­ing. So why are, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
2927.750 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

…so, it is the oppo­site of free­dom…”, Aeneas, speak­ing against the Pelo­pon­nesian War, Athens, 29 Sep­tem­ber 425 BCE, 10:17:37:08 — 10:17:39:78, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
306.150 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

…once this occurs, it will only ben­e­fit the elite sec­tions…”, Zhou Yu, speak­ing against the War of the Three King­doms, Yil­ing, 3 Jan­u­ary 224, 21:45:32:30 — 21:45:38:30, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
67.950 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…strat­e­gy…”, Umayyah, speak­ing against the First Fit­na, Med­i­na, 2 Decem­ber 656, 15:28:49:27 — 15:28:49:77, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
57.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…they…”, Abro­fo speak­ing against the Almoravid con­quest of the Ghanas, Ghanan Empire, 16 May 1063, 15:42:37:12 — 15:42:37:62, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
57.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“..vic­tims…”, Mut­suko, speak­ing against the Gen­pei War, Kyoto, 16 June 1181, 11:21:45:17 — 11:21:45:67, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
57.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…have…”, Ottil­ja, speak­ing against the Rus­so-Swedish War, Ivan­gorod, 9 Novem­ber 1496, 21:48:41:66 — 21:48:41:86, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
23.650 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…if I cou…”, Huay­na, speak­ing against the War of the Two Broth­ers, Cus­co, 23:41:59:48 — 23:41:59:98, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
57.550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…ee..”, Jagdesh, speak­ing against the First Anglo-Sikh War, Ali­w­al, 28 August 1845, 14:27:58:12 — 14:27:58:22, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
12.350 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“..ass…”, Pucu, speak­ing against the Con­tes­ta­do War, Curitibanos, 31 July 1917, 07:23:09:22 — 07:23:09:62, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
46.250 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“..to the…”, Felic­i­ty, speak­ing against World War 1, Lon­don, 14 Jan­u­ary 1915, 11:28:31:83 — 11:28:32:23, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
46.250 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…m…”, Kwe­si, speak­ing against the Ifni War, Sidi Ifni, 17 Decem­ber 1957, 18:46:08:34.57 — 18:46:08:35.32, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
94.7550 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…and that the…”, Arturo, speak­ing against the Con­tras War, Man­agua, 24 July 1983, 9:31:12:32 — 9:31:13:22, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
102.750 cm

Louisa Bufarde­ci

“…only by…”, Glo­ri­ja, speak­ing against the Yugoslav Wars, Vuko­var, 22 Feb­ru­ary 1992, 13:43:11:58 — 13:43:12:38, 2007
Cot­ton thread, flyscreen
91.450 cm