Part of the Essence of Containment series, these images feature the interior installations presented at Red Gate Gallery Studio, Beijing, China, 2013 to 2014. One large installation included projections, stencils, rice flower, found objects and soundtracks, exploring imagery and iconography related to China as a major trading empire, both historically and currently. In a homage to Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a further smaller installation featured digital print canvases and self-portraits created in a Beijing digital print shop in the “style of  Vincent van Gogh within 3o minutes”. The installation also included found objects, a copy of “Mao’s Little Red Book”, take-away containers featuring Vicki McConville’s travel photos, a table and a chair.

The Essence of Containment: Traversing the Terrain of Trade and Transformation is Vicki McConville’s ongoing studio based research project. The project was initiated at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia as part of a PhD (Fine Art / Research).

Between 2011 and 2017 Vicki McConville was an Artist in Resident in Venice, Istanbul, Delhi, Beijing, all major sites on historical and contemporary ‘trade routes’. The residencies involved collection of visual, sound and text based research materials followed by creative production, international collaborations and presentations. 

The project initially investigated travel, trade and the personal transformation impact on images and iconography and involved creative production in projections, video, sound, print media and diorama constructions. 

The research involves exploring how travel and trade are immersive methodologies that lead to the transformation of iconographies. In essence, how ‘the container’ of trade changed the world. 

The concept of ‘the container’ has since been further explored as it relates to the use of psychedelics as a means of personal transformation. 

The work, still in progress, has been shown at Monash University, Melbourne, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy, Sanskriti Foundation Delhi, the C.e.C, Bhimtal, India, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India and at the Atelier Mondial , Basel, as part of Art Basel, Switzerland.