And Such Matter

2024

plastic mesh, pine needles, glue

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[From Portals exhibition description, 2025, Centre A] Using pine needles, mesh, and thread, these sculptures engage with the human and material labour required for acts of support and sustenance. The materials come from readily-accessible sources including workplaces, friends, public spaces, and online groups for used goods. The blue mesh in And Such Matter was taken from Cleave’s grandparents’ home, the end piece of a larger roll of mesh once used in their work as fruit farmers.

 

Paired with the mesh, rows of individually placed pine needles point to the ordinary labours that sustain us and the need to attend to moments of failure, as described in Johanna Hedva’s essay Notes on Activism (aka Notes on Failure). The title What Comes After What is Done was taken from this essay, a phrase Hedva uses to describe how failure is neither good nor bad, neither subversive of capitalism nor useful to it, just what happens after a large effort. 

 

Together with plum and bamboo, pine has long symbolized resilience in Japanese textiles, ceramics, lacquerware, and more, for its ability to survive harsh winters. These sculptures put this symbol of resilience into tension with ideas of change, instability, and failure. Cleave first began making them during a time of grief, and when a friend gifted them some pine needles leftover from their own projects. Over time, the colour of the pine needles will shift as they dry and warp.