#tom isaacs

SCA PROJECT SPACE 
SACRIFICIAL BODIES  | TOM ISAACS

Disappearance, suffocation, collapse, and death. These are the sufferings of the alienated and depressed body. Or are they, perhaps, the means by which suffering can be overcome? Deprivation and self-harm are time-honoured tools used in spiritual disciplines from around the world and throughout history. They are also recurring motifs in the field of body art.

In his PhD examination exhibition ‘Sacrificial Bodies’, Tom Isaacs demonstrates his deep and critical engagement with the problems of alienation and depression through his body art practice. Drawing from his research on ritual and psychoanalysis, Isaacs has developed four performances that interrogate the medium of body art and explore its potential efficacy as a response to these formidable deadlocks. 

Date: 13 April - 20 April, 2022
Open by appointment
Email: [email protected]
Location: SCA Project Space, Room 201B, Building A12, Science Road, Macleay Building, The University of Sydney.

Ruach Redux - Tom Isaacs

Ruach Redux is currently being exhibited at Articulate Project Space as part of ‘per.doc’, Articulate’s fourth Decade Show. ‘per.doc’ features some of the performances and associated projects undertaken at APS over the past 10 years. My installation is located in the same room where I performed Ruach(2011).

My artist’s statement for Ruach Redux was included in the ‘per.doc’ exhibition catalogue:

In 2011 I was invited to spend two weeks working in the Articulate project space with the aim of producing work that responded to the site. During this time I devised a new performance piece called Ruach which I performed in the back room. For this performance I spent three days and nights in the space practicing breath meditation, capturing my exhalations in white balloons which slowly accumulated, filling up the space. My goal with this performance was to objectify the act of contemplation, to take something invisible—breath, spirit, energy—and make it visible. Ruach is a Hebrew word which means breath, life, or soul. In the book of Genesis it is the Ruach of God which is breathed into the first man, giving him life. Much later, the prophet Ezekiel witnessed the Ruach of God animating the bones of the dead, restoring them to new life. This Ruach is literally the breath of life. At the time that I performed this piece I still believed in God and believed that I was filled with his spirit. As I put it then, “I was created by God in His image and His Ruach lives within me. And for a time it was in the Articulate Project Space, 497 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt.” I am currently agnostic about the existence of gods and souls.

In addition to making something visible, the original performance of Ruach took something ephemeral—breath, duration, performance—and made it physical and enduring (although not permanent). The balloons were, in effect, a form of documentation, albeit a temporary one (as I suppose all human attempts at documentation are likely to be on the grandest time scale). If I had kept the popped and deflated balloons from the performance I could have exhibited them as an indexical document. In their place I have chosen to exhibit the leftover unused balloons which remained at the end of the three day period. Alongside these artefacts I have selected one photograph of the performance by my good friend Alex Wisser.

Tehom (the Deep) - Tom Isaacs

‘Cessnock Contemporary’ curated by Merryn Hull PhD. Also pictured Beneathby Lily Stothard.

Photography: Merryn Hull PhD (images 1-3) and Isobel Markus-Dunworth (images 4-6). 

I wrote an artist’s statement for the exhibition catalogue:

Tehom (the Deep) is a way of thinking through my experience of anxiety and depression, and of expressing my desire for healing, whether medical or spiritual. This work draws from religious and spiritual understandings of water as a healing or cleansing element. ‘Tehom’ is a Hebrew word, used in the opening lines of the book of Genesis to refer to the primordial, abyssal waters of creation, shrouded in darkness and waiting for the transformative word of God. This work is also informed by the psychoanalytic theories of the death drive and melancholia, according to which fantasies of death by drowning may be inspired by a desire to return to the encompassing waters of the womb.