Divine Vessel, 2004
Book, 20.9 x 14.6 cm, 375 p, language: English, publisher: Birmingham: Article Press, ISBN: 1873352093.
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/472).
Literary synopsis
Heather & Ivan Morison create a full length pulp-parody novel entitled Divine Vessel, a version of their own journey from Shanghai to Auckland aboard a cargo ship. Deliberately ludicrous, alternating between purple prose, factual data and knowingly silly humor, it’s a disjointed science-fiction yarn in which the Morisons are disguised as the characters Seth and Ruby, and encounter naked Filipino seamen, Captain Nemo and an extraterrestrial rabbit en route from China to New Zealand.
Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice
''A copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire constitutes the dominant material of Heather & Ivan Morison's work of the same name (2003). Wild flowers collected from Mongolia just out from the pages that have been used to press and preserve them within the pages of the battered and somewhat dated-looking book. Also in 2003 Heather & Ivan Morison wrote Divine Vessel, a 72,000-word science fiction novel, on a journey aboard a cargo ship. This novel is the outcome of the performative self-imposed isolation of a one month sea voyage from China to New Zealand. Asimov's book was one that they had read in preparation for the task while photographing wild flowers in Mongolia. This whole period was encompassed by their pan-global voyage Global Survey. Like Russian matryoshka dolls, one work reveals another.''
- Dan Smith, Art Monthly, March 2007
Authorship: Collective Authorship.
Creative Strategy: Artworks Biographical Origin.
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Memoir, Roman à clef, Science-Fiction.
Publishing: Public Institution.
Theme: Death, Homosexuality, Utopian Worlds, Violence.
Media
>
>Foundation and Empire 2003 Science fiction book, Mongolian wildflowers
>The paradigm of an endless or irresolvable quest can be witnessed in the practice of artists Heather and Ivan Morison, where the staging of grand, episodic adventures or global expeditions appears to produce only ever slight or dematerialised; idiosyncratic or obscure, or else highly personal or anecdotal outcomes. Whilst the performative element of a quest or journey is often central to their practice, the actual motivation for the (re)search itself often remains nonsensical or absurd; poetic or purposeless. It often functions as a ruse or foil through which to undertake an alternative trajectory of enquiry; to create points of arbitrary focus such that they may then explore the resultant peripheries. In 2003, they proposed to undertake a year-long period of research, which would take the form of an irredeemably impossible 'global survey'. Travelling across the Baltic States, Russia, Western Siberia, Mongolia, China and New Zealand, their “quest was to explore without prejudice and to record and broadcast their observations”; where akin to “a pioneering exploration there (was) no end destination, only points to navigate by”. Ambiguous and undeclared, the specific nature of their research was deliberately open-ended and indeterminate. Opportunity and chance encounter were adopted as the critical decision making processes, where relational encounters and conversational exchange plotted the route taken or determined the motivation for each episode of the adventure. Emma Cocker, 'Not Yet There: Endless Searches and Irresolvable Quests', 2007
Artist
> Heather & Ivan Morison.
Exhibitions & Ensembles
> Exhibition: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ARTWORK BECOMES A NOVEL?. M HKA, Antwerp, 07 December 2012 - 21 April 2013.
> Exhibition: Book Lovers 4.0 (Pop-up Bookstore). De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, 28 January 2014 - 02 February 2014.
> Exhibition: THE BOOK LOVERS - A Project about Artist Novels. The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 25 January 2013 - 09 March 2013.
> Exhibition: The Preparation of the Novel (Book Lovers 5.0). Fabra i Coats - Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, 18 July 2014 - 05 September 2014.
> Ensemble: The Artist's Novel.