Originally published in The New Hesperian: Issue Two (2021)
It is not an exaggeration to say that a visit to Sarah Grant’s Studio is one fraught with danger, the sharp edges of rusty scrap - stacked vertiginously in a maze-like array - stalk you like the the bared teeth of a predator. The amount of trash is mind-boggling; choice material for the absurdist sculptures for which Grant is known, yet so vehement were the objections of her neighbours to the storage of these legally acquired objects that the collection - and the act of collecting - has become a performance piece in and of itself, an outrageous new direction for an artist who has long examined boorishness, aggression and autonomy in the context of gender.
I feel confronted being in your studio but I can’t really justify this feeling. You’re not breaking any law. You’re not hurting anybody. It doesn’t smell.
There's no vermin.
None?
I figured that’s the one thing they could come at me with so I’ve always made sure that I don’t bring in anything that could become a food source. I was careful about it before this even became a project, when I was simply storing junk to use for sculptures. It was the only way I thought they could shut me down.
Is mitigating hostility something you’ve always considered in your practice?
People have been hostile towards me my whole life whether I meant to be antagonistic or not. Beginning with my Dad who’d complain that I ate too loud and didn’t breathe properly.
Have you ever experienced violence?
From my Dad? No way.
Sorry, I meant through your artistic practice.
[laughter] It hasn’t been that bad here at the studio. Most of the people making the complaints are cowards I haven’t even met. They’ll complain to the council. They’ll leave threatening anonymous letters. It’s kind of like you said, they have a feeling they can’t justify. They can’t tell me precisely what I’m doing wrong and they don’t know how to confront me about it so they just throw rocks or bottles over the fence. They think I care but have a look at my crap heap; how can you tell the fucking difference?
If they read this interview they may start throwing old bread.
[laughter]
So much of your junk is associated with masculine pursuits and in that context I think it wouldn’t bother me so much. Like that mass of hanging bicycle chains. It’s so grotesque it seems alive. But if this was a factory that made chains I’d feel nothing.
There's a few old motorbike ones there too. I've loved stacks of chains since I did mechanical workshop at high school.
You studied mechanics at school?
Much to my dad's disgust.
If this was a mechanical workshop I don’t think the chains would have the same effect. I can understand it. I can understand why they’re there and therefore I can put it out of my mind.
Even if it was me that was running the workshop?
I agree there's a definite gender bias within that context too.
But if I were a man in this context the neighbours would feel differently about it too. When women do this they’re called hoarders. It's pathological. They’re seen as unstable and dangerous. But men are colourful collectors or eccentrics like Pro Hart or something. Even my dad; his shed was a disaster zone for as long as I can remember and the only person who ever complained was my Mum. The neighbours thought he was a character; one even made him a sign that said Roy’s Toys.
Cute!
He didn't think so. He threw it out. [laughter]
Did your interest in gender biases begin with your dad's opposition to you studying mechanics?
No, he was opposed because he thought it would lead to me taking up a trade or not studying the serious subjects hard enough. He thought the same about traditionally feminine subjects like Art or Home Ec. He really wanted me to become an engineer actually. He was a real paradox. He would encourage me to exert independence and not let society or my peers tell me how to behave but then he’d be controlling about the strangest things like not watching American TV shows, or not scraping the plate with my fork, or not dragging my feet when I walked. That was really confusing for a kid and it definitely led to me becoming fascinated by transgression. At school I’d always be friends with the naughty kid; the kid that comfortably broke the rules I was too afraid to break. The kids who seemed unaffected by punishments. All this control and scrutiny is deeper than my interest in gender. It’s all just so weird to me. This arbitrary control. Like, I’m not supposed to do something simply because I’m a woman. It makes no sense. And on gender I think my Dad felt the same way. He was consistent with me and my brother and sister. Do what you want. As long as you don’t chew loud. Or draw on your school books.
So by studying mechanics you were asserting autonomy?
Yeah I guess. It upset my Dad. It upset the school. I wanted to annoy the boys just by being there, to see what they got up to in these male-only spaces. But mostly I thought it would be a good chance to muck around and do things the wrong way. I knew I had no chance to do that in high school art where whatever I did would be fine. I needed boundaries to cross.
Given you still use the materials associated with male-dominated work, do they still represent this to you?
All that stuff is very functional. You use it systematically. I started using this stuff in sculptures because it amused me to put these things together in the wrong way. It was a really pure example of people getting annoyed by something that harms nobody. I had this piece at one of my early group shows called Who Cares? which was simply an imperial nut threaded onto a metric bolt. The only person that commented was the grandfather of one of the other artists; he said I used the wrong nut.
What did you say to that?
I told him it was the wrong bolt.
You were quite specific earlier about not experiencing violence at the studio, but what about in response to other works? I’m thinking one of your performance pieces like New Car or You Couldn’t Catch A Watermelon.
It's amazing that nobody had a go when I did those pieces, in particular the New Car piece [A performance involving the artist deliberately parking her car across two parking bays in mostly empty parking lots - ed.]. Stuff that immediately comes to mind is the hassle I got trying to sell my drawings outside sporting stadiums. Sometimes it was parents telling me that the drawings were too gratuitous. Or it would be middle-aged men getting frothed up because I was selling drawings of the West Coast Eagles outside of the soccer game.
What would happen?
Mostly threats. They’d get right into my face. Or they’d walk past too close and purposely bump into me, knocking my stuff to the ground. Stand on my drawings.
Did anybody help?
Nope. Security moved me along and threatened me with cops. When I told my friend David about it and showed him the drawings they were complaining about he said that much worse stuff got shouted at the players during the game; all of it in front of families. It’s what inspired the Watermelon recordings. Would I get away with yelling what the middle-aged men yelled?
Those recordings were quite confronting.
Yeah. Sometimes they were.
I understand you prepared extensively for this piece.
It was never going to be simply a matter of repeating what I’d heard but repeating it at culturally acceptable times. I went to heaps of games. I got to know the rules of the sport and the areas of the crowd where the vulgarity and personal insults were acceptable. It was almost scientific. I wanted to make sure that any hostility I received for yelling things was because of my identity rather than me yelling the thing at the wrong team or something.
It was an amazing piece. Besides some specific aspect of your identity I couldn’t think of any reason why you were singled out to stop.
I thought I was almost always one of the more moderate hecklers. Some stuff I heard I didn’t dare repeat, like death threats.
I remember hearing a few of those.
And there was stuff other people said that I edited out. Umpires were threatened by name. One was told he was going to be run over at the end of the game.
Aren't you afraid that one day you'll go too far?
Not really, although I wonder how far I’m going to push it with the studio before I’m satisfied. Maybe I'll go too far before that time. It’s my goal to be the subject of some Current Affairs-style exposé. Maybe after that I can stop.