6 FINANCIAL TIMES Friday 20 March 2020

ARTS

A blacksmith

works on a knife

in ‘Metal’, one of

three films in

the ‘Handmade’

series

A new series on TV and streamed shows

that are perfect for lockdown and isolation

“Slow TV” sounded like the worst possi-

ble antidote to the tense ennui of family

life in lockdown. “Seriously, mum,

Handmade?” snarked my 10-year-old

son, with one contemptuous eyebrow

raised. “You want us to watch a man

make a chair? For a whole half-hour?

And there’s no talking or music? Wow.”

Egged on by the giggles of his little

sister, he flicked through the TV menu.

“Oh, I can hardly wait. Look, in the

other episodes they make...” (ironic jazz

hands) “a knife and an actual jug. This is

more boring than school.”

Fifteen minutes later, however, both

little cynics were mesmerised, sitting in

uncharacteristically awed silence as

master craftsman Jim Steele bent wood

to make an exquisite Windsor chair in

the garage of his pebbledashed War-

wickshire home. It has taken Steele dec-

ades to perfect the tender precision to

make the chairs, which have been cre-

ated in the same way since the 1800s,

with a smoothly sculpted elm seat and

legs, stretchers and top pieces carved

from ash.

We all relaxed as Steele’s liver-spotted

hands took calm control of his materi-

als. Slivers of planed wood curled and

fell, the hand-drill turned with steady

purpose and spindles slotted perfectly

into their holes. I swear I could smell it.

Directed by Bafta-winner Ian Denyer

in long, lingering shots of the kind

unseen since the 1950s seriesInterludes,

theHandmadeseries was first screened

in 2015 to spearhead the BBC’s “slow

TV” movement, and I guarantee there is

nothing more comforting available on

the small screen at this time.

The only pity is that just three epi-

sodes are available: “Wood”, “Metal”

and “Glass”. Each takes 30 minutes to

show viewers the hypnotic process of an

object’s loving creation, with “Wood”

capturing Steele making his chair.

“Metal” tracks the fiery toil of Kentish

blacksmith Owen Bush making a

Damascus knife using a pattern-welding

technique dating back to the Iron Age.

The method, invented to give strength

to blades, involves combining different

types of steel. The modern steels that

Owen combines (manganese and

nickel) create a deliciously wavy pat-

tern. The layers of steel are sandwiched

together to form a billet, resembling a

deck of cards, which is hand-forged and

manipulated to create the blade itself.

Bush doesn’t explain this, though.

There is no interview. No voiceover. No

soundtrack. Instead, Denyer credits the

viewer with enough intelligence and

sensitivity and lets the process explain

itself, accompanied by the percussive

clang of metal, the glug of cooling water

poured into tanks and the relentless

blaze and crackle of the furnace.

Denyer explains: “The sound was the

starting point for some shots. When

Bush first appears, he moves around his

forge yard between a group of hidden

microphones, but is also wearing tiny

transmitting microphones inside his

shirt and taped into his turn-ups to

deliver the delicate crunching of boots

through drifts of steel waste.”

“Glass” bears witness to Dulwich

glass-blower Michael Ruh breathing life

into a jug. Unlike the other two objects —

made in phases — the jug is the product

of perpetual motion, and benefits

best from the extended camera shots.

I loved the sunset colours of the molten

glass, and felt my spine soften against

the sofa as the handle bent on to the

main vessel.

Denyer says: “Having grown up being

constantly asked to move the camera

more and, in the edit, cut shots shorter,

this was a joy. It was a chance to cele-

brate craft on both sides of the camera.”

There is more than enough drama in

the simple act of a man manipulating his

briefly malleable material at extreme

temperatures. Will it break? Will it flop

the wrong way? I didn’t check my phone

once while watching, and I have an

attention span only marginally longer

than that of my kids.

Normally, when writing about a TV

programme, I have to think: what kind

of person would like this? But with

HandmadeI struggle to think of anyone

who wouldn’t if they gave it a shot. We

all love watching skilled people at work,

making this ideal for families to watch

together — even if you just put it on in

the background.

In these uncertain times,Handmade

offers reassurance of the longstanding

human ability to create beautiful solu-

tions to basic problems. It made me feel

calm and it kept the kids still. Even if

their more worrying longer-term plan is

now to make themselves swords in the

back garden.

HelenBrown

Available on BBC iPlayer and at

iandenyer.co.uk

The meditative power of making

Rupert Betheras and Fabian Brown, ‘Warriors Journey’ (2016)

riot of mixed-media works on aban-

doned TV screens and repurposed

“pokies” (poker machines) salvaged

from a defunct nightclub. “In Tennant

Creek, Aboriginal men have been stere-

otyped into figures of notoriety and dis-

repute — made to live on the edge of two

worlds... They are Nirin and this is

their biennale,” the artists proclaim.

Alongside indigenous Australians

there are First Nationers from New Zea-

land, Canada and the US, plus several

Sami artists (natives of Sapmi, the area

historically known in English as Lap-

land) including Anders Sunna. In a bril-

liantly spontaneous mural created for

the CAC, he meshes Australian and

Sapmi colonial history and gives Cap-

tain Cook a slap on the bottom.

There are fewer internationally

known artists in this biennale, but Laure

Prouvost, who represented France in

last year’s Venice Biennale, is among

those Andrew has selected. On Cocka-

too Island her distinctive francophone

tones greet us at the entrance to the Dog

Leg Tunnel (originally built to move

workers and materials from one side of

the island to the other): “I was waiting

for you,” she whispers. “Not that person

just in front of you, but you... ” And so

we embark on a dusty trek through the

innards of the island, pausing every so

often to navigate gauzy drapes and con-

template small objects — an open-

mouthed ceramic fish, a packet of but-

ter — set against film evoking the loca-

tion’s shipbuilding history. At the mid-

point, she cries out for her grandfather.

Potentially a wonderfully creepy

project, it feels thin on the ground and

ultimately underwhelming.

Much more impressive is “A Grain of

Wheat”, a display of ancient medical

stretchers collected from a refugee

camp in Athens and installed at Art-

space by Ibrahim Mahama, one of the

artists in the much-praised Ghanaian

pavilion in Venice. Embedded with old

maps and smelling unexpectedly of

smoked fish, the work alludes obliquely

to a past you can’t quite put your finger

on, in the same way that the artist’s vast

installation of torn, grimy sacks at Cock-

atoo Island evokes the human cost of

world trade.

The most exciting works, however,

come from lesser-known names such as

Afghani film-maker Aziz Hazara. His

deeply affecting five-channel video

“Bow Echo” was inspired by the “horror

game” suicide bombers continue to play

in Kabul. Five small boys stand on a

rocky outcrop above the city. Buffeted

by strong winds, one boy in particular

struggles to stay upright, as they signal

the deaths on tiny plastic bugles.

Also impressive is a piece by Adrift

Lab, a group of researchers who study

“all things adrift on the ocean” around

Lord Howe Island. In a series of films

projected on to tables, birds that have

swallowed plastic objects inevitably fig-

ure strongly, while more plastic objects

litter the tables nearby. The information

is hardly new, but its fragmented,

aesthetically inventive presentation

I

n a Sydney gallery, I find myself

immersed in an ocean alive with

stripy fish. Moments later the

waters recede and the room comes

into focus. A bright white ceremo-

nial log dominates the floorspace, which

has become a promontory. Shaded by

gum trees, I am now poised above a

slow-flowing river, with hypnotic chant-

ing and drumming in my ears.

One of the standout pieces of the Syd-

ney Biennale, which opened last week,

“Watami Manikay (Song of the Winds)”

is a work using digital technologies and

video art by the Mulka Project, a collec-

tive based in north-east Arnhem Land.

This place, known for its ancient bark

paintings, is now home to some cutting-

edge digital artists intent on promoting

the region’s Yolngu culture.

Old meets new quite often in this, the

22nd edition of the biennale — the first

to be directed by an indigenous Austral-

ian, Brook Andrew. Taking as his title

Nirin, a Wiradjuri word meaning

“edge”, the artist-curator invites us in

fact to look beyond “the edge” — the

boundaries of what we know — “to chal-

lenge history, to be part of the story and

immerse ourselves in imagined

futures”. With more than 700 works by

101 artists spread across six venues —

including Campbelltown Arts Centre

(CAC), an hour’s drive from the city —

this biennale is original and impressive.

As we went to press, the festival was car-

rying on, a thoughtful note on its web-

site balancing the importance of main-

taining access to the values of mutual

respect and free expression against the

need to minimise risks to health.

Most notably, it is a First Nations-led

affair. Indigenous artists (including vir-

tually all of the 39 Australians involved)

are the stars. Alongside the Mulka

Project at the Art Gallery of New South

Wales (AGNSW), Wiradjuri artist Karla

Dickens addresses the “pretensions”

(her word) of the neoclassical vestibule

with her ramshackle “Dickensian Cir-

cus”. Big silver boxing gloves sway on

stalks and a small, enigmatic female

Ingenious celebration of indigenous art

gives the work enormous power.

Sovereignty, healing, transformation:

Nirin delves into difficult subjects. If the

aim is to give a glimpse of a better imag-

ined future, it doesn’t spare us the pain

along the way. I’m left with an image of

Ahmed Umar, a gay Sudanese artist

standing beside his sculptural rendering

of his own sarcophagus with a rectangle

where his genitals would be cut out and

placed on the floor. The piece was born

in the “aftermath of opening up about

my sexuality and being considered dead

by some of my close family members”,

he says.

Yet there are moments of pure joy,

too: South African photographer Musa

N Nxumalo’s powerful shots of a young

singer and students protesting over fees;

and, hidden away on Cockatoo Island,

film-maker Warwick Thornton’s “Meth

Kelly”. How did the Irish rebel become

an Australian hero, wonders Thornton,

a Kaytetye man born in Alice Springs. In

grainy black and white, with a punk

soundtrack, he reinvents Ned Kelly as a

loser who holds up a 7-Eleven store only

to be beaten back by the proprietor

armed with a flip-flop. Brook Andrew’s

Nirin is about challenging history and

sometimes that happens in gloriously

unexpected ways.

Biennale runs to June 8

biennaleofsydney.art

Still going ahead despite the

coronavirus outbreak, the

Sydney Biennale focuses on

the work of First Nations

artists. By Jane Ure-Smith

CORONAVIRUS AND

THE ART MARKET

Could the pandemic

prove a catalyst for

an industry that

desperately needs

to modernise and

reduce its carbon

footprint?Melanie

Gerlisreports

ft.com/arts

There is no interview.

No voiceover. No

soundtrack. The film lets

the process explain itself

figure pops up in birdcages as Dickens

evokes the ghosts of the marginalised

indigenous people involved in tent-

boxing and circuses from the 1920s to

the 1950s. Nearby, powerfully scaled-up

images by the Gomeroi Murri Yinah

photographer Barbara McGrady cap-

ture a 2015 Black Lives Matter demon-

stration and the family of a teenager

who died while being pursued by police

speaking at a protest rally.

The Tennant Creek Brio collective

unites former Australian rules football

star-turned-painter Rupert Betheras

with eight indigenous artists now based

in Tennant Creek, north of Alice

Springs. A community project to heal

the wounds of this once booming mining

town has spawned at Artspace and on

Cockatoo Island a joyously inventive

Astill from Aziz Hazara’s video, ‘Bow Echo’ (2019). Below left: part of Karla Dickens’s ‘A Dickensian Circus’ (2020)

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MARCH 20 2020 Section:Features Time: 19/3/2020 - 18: 29 User: david.cheal Page Name: ARTS LON, Part,Page,Edition: EUR, 6 , 1