Born in 1979 in Geelong, Australia

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Nick Mangan

A1 Southwest Stone, 2008

Digging holes.

My Mother once relayed a story to me about my uncle, who as a young boy, inspired by the tunnel digging escapees in the book The Great Escape, dug a hidden room-sized hole under his bedroom, and sifted the dirt in the garden of their family home. I’ve often wondered where he was going with his tunnel, entering a space between the real world physicality of dirt and a digging into his own imagination.

History: Footings, sub structures.

My first impression of Santa Fe was that it was some kind of Disneyland for adults, dripping with architectural codes. But this typology in fact runs far deeper than it first appears.

The Santa Fe Style has seen many incarnations and many buildings have been camouflaged in this now iconic mud rendering movement.

In archaeological terms, Santa Fe, the so-called ‘city different’ has three main levels of cultural sedimentation: the indigenous inhabitants, Spanish colonisers, and American newcomers. These are somewhat simplified representations of what lies beneath the exterior building surfaces and under the soil. In Santa Fe’s case, stratification doesn’t only run horizontally or vertically, but arbitrarily.

From dirt to Disney.

Around 1876, the notion of “Indian Detours” was conceived by the English immigrant and entrepreneur Fred Harve,y the so-called “civiliser of the west”. Harvey is said to been the pioneer of the art of commercial cultural tourism. The Fred Harvey Company worked together with the Santa Fe rail company, forcing collision between the ancient and the modern.

What is known as the romantic regional style of architecture was employed by the American newcomers to promote tourism with a picturesque flavour, designed as an escape from the rigidity of their industrialised world. This economy based movement encouraged profit over the acknowledgement of sovereignty. Harvey employed architect Mary Colter to dream up Pseudopueblos that were inserted along the southwest tourist trail.

Excavations.

There is a fine line between digging a hole, which could be seen as an act of aggression, and an excavation, which approaches the earth with care, caution, and anticipation; the signs of life and habitation that an archaeological dig reveals.

The information found in a dig reveals clues to the past, while retaining enough holes to produce a narrative that can sometimes move beyond plausible speculation into realms of fiction. Histories as we know them have been woven through these holes

Excavating in Santa Fe would reveal a blurred line between artefact and artifice, a puzzle of faceted remains, mutant conglomerations of worked stone, mud, and ambiguous architectural features.

I am interested in utilizing the notion of an excavation, physically – with a shovel – but moreover as a way of gathering information about the towns local history and myths; as a way of sieving through some of the facts and fictions, upturning some of the dried out mud.

Adding to the myths of Santa Fe, the project will involve the excavation (Foley ruin) of an existing Santa Fe garage of no real significance. The existing hand painted signage on the building, which reads, “A1 southwest stone”, (a former small business) will be brought into play, with a heavy nod to the Southwests native Indians, of the New Mexico region known for their stone stacked traditional pit house lodges and semisubterranean kivas.

I will take this former business title and embed it with a deeper meaning. One narrative that I am interested in pursuing is around the possibility of an argument that the stone once sold from the shed was sourced from a plundered ancient pueblo stone ruin, which laid beneath the present building, or in fact a lost turn of the century Harvey Company Pseudopueblo – Indian detour.

Nick Mangan’s project is located at 1005-G Alto Street.

Nick Mangan’s work is often situated at the turbulent cusp between contemporary consumer culture and the construction of history through artifact. In his sculptural installations, he draws on the narratives embedded within ready-made and found objects.

An integration of natural and cultural processes of fragmentation and reconfiguration, and an examination of how meaning is formed via these methods is central to his work. This interest is played out both metaphorically and through a manipulation of materials. Mangan’s installations highlight the environmental effects of culture on nature that are so intrinsic to modernity. Working from this position, Mangan has nurtured an ongoing investigation of “exotic” objects and souvenirs, exploring the ways in which they both represent and commodify culture.

The Mutant Message (2006), a project the artist developed during a two-week residency in Australia’s remote outback region of Arnhem Land, highlights these concerns. The residency was intended as a cultural exchange project between non-indigenous artists and artists from the Gunbalanya community in the Northern Territory of Australia. Mangan drew on his observations of the regions people, their artwork, and the politics of the area in the creation of The Mutant Message. Using materials available at the local store in Gumbalanya, Mangan created a “Dream Catcher”. This piece responded to the working methods of these artists, particularly the way they manipulated everyday objects to serve new functions. With this work, Mangan draws attention to the commodification of indigenous culture – especially the merchandising of “dreaming.”

Similarly, Comparative Material (2006-07) was created during a residency in New York City where the artist collected and compiled an assortment of recycled and second-hand objects sourced from the city’s streets and flea markets. As with The Mutant Message, Mangan found inspiration from the way locals employed material. In this case Mangan drew on the resourcefulness of New York’s homeless people and the way they appropriate plastic bags, cable ties, shopping trolleys and packaging boxes, making them into temporary homes. With Comparative Material Mangan questions the notion of sculptural production in an age of waste and over-consumption, as well as exploring the cultural articulations of value that alter the function and meaning of an object.

Presenting fragments of site, history, and myth, Mangan’s sculptural installations are surreal, yet revealingly honest analogies of humanity and the dubious progress of capitalism. With his particular attentiveness to people and the way they interact with context, both culturally and historically, Mangan’s works embody the essence of place and the perpetuity of time with humor, honesty, and sincerity.

Alexie Glass