Before returning to Aotearoa from Australia eight years ago, Wanda Gillespie had a recurring dream that she was eating soil. This is where her work begins, with the earth. Referring to herself as a Mystical Archaeologist, the artist mines meaning from wood plucked out of the ground to imbue objects, once only capable of utilitarianism, with potency and hope.
Stockroom Kyneton is the site of a former butter factory, and the space containing The Ministry for Mystical Reckoning is as cold as a larder. It is visually pared back in comparison to the four other spaces in the building, which gives Gillespie’s exhibition a sense of austerity, as if she is concerned with only the essentials. Her intricately carved pieces inhabit a gallery with two small areas, the first containing nine abaci from three different series, distinguished by the shapes of their frames. Overseeing the workings of these is a figure with an hourglass, named The Mathematician, who appears to be the Chief Officer of the Ministry for Mystical Reckoning. In the second, darkened space, an abacus bearing another hourglass design faces a monitor. On the screen, two sets of arms move the beads of an abacus back and forth against a lush garden setting—decoding an unidentified equation, before time runs out.
An ancient global phenomenon used in various forms across the Middle East, Europe and Asia, today most people know the abacus as a mass-produced toy to learn, via play, the basics of mathematics. However, it is this simple act of playing that makes it a compelling symbol with which to consider our economy. Sitting alongside The Mathematician, a single round abacus references the circular economy theory, which prioritises the reuse of materials to reduce both waste and our compulsion to make and purchase new.
In his book Sacred Economies, Charles Eisenstein writes: “So immersed in scarcity are we that we take it to be the nature of reality. But in fact, we live in a world of abundance. The omnipresent scarcity we experience is an artifact: of our money system, of politics, and our perceptions.”[01] He goes on to implore his readers to return to an earlier, gift-based economy (not dissimilar to a circular one), and to stop focusing on notions of individuality and worth, values that pit us against each other and the environment. He describes civilisation as being in a coming-of-age moment: for thousands of years we have played around—testing the boundaries of our mother, Earth.
The newest abaci in the exhibition glimpse back fondly at Gillespie’s second home. Triangular in shape, they feature endangered flowers, including the native orchid, waratah and grevillea—unexpectedly beautiful details of the arid Australian terrain. In contrast, the rectangular abaci are abstracted more broadly from the softer landscapes of Aotearoa. With their series title, ‘A Counting Frame for a Transient Era’, Gillespie suggests she has imbued these works with qualities to assist us in the quandary of being alive now, on these Islands where, for example, we find ourselves in a recession while recovering from unprecedented flooding.
But abaci cannot physically fix such problems, and in this way Gillespie’s counting devices gesture towards the impossible task of taking full account of economic damage to the environment. Instead, they offer a vantage through which we might approach a kind of ecological–spiritual reckoning for ourselves. While Gillespie’s abaci playfully comment on our profit-based economic system, of which they are also an early mechanism, The Mathematician keeps watch on our behalf. Part statistician, part shaman, he exudes a calm optimism that he, too, can help us channel such an alternate reality. One, perhaps, as Eisenstein theorises, where there is space for money, kindness and sustainability; factors that currently compete against each other as the urgency of climate change becomes more alarming with each passing season.
How do we get through this no longer awkward, but now dangerous, coming of age? Why do we need a fantastical government department? When society at large has been fed phrases such as ‘the only certainties in life are death and taxes’, Gillespie’s sculptures act as administrative totems for the twenty-first century. Consider them aids to use at our own discretion; to move the beads back and forth until we strike a union between our reliance on an economy, and the earth that we so depend on.
Header image: Wanda Gillespie, A Counting Frame for a Transient Era (Hourglass in Lilac with purple beads), 2022, rata with Walnut splines, Walnut chip carved stand, enamel paint, anodised aluminium and leather. Courtesy of the artist and Stockroom Kyneton
[01] Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition (Berkeley: Evolver Editions, 2011), 23–24.
Thousands of Flowers: an interview with Minister Paul Goldsmith