Olivia Hassett

Residency 2022, ongoing work in progress
Perched in the attic of the original 330year old Milford House I look out and see
the forest of ancient trees surrounding the house. I am drawn to the 250-year-old
beech trees weighed down by 100,000’s of spiky beech mast. A day spent
collecting hundreds of beech nuts led to hours of painstaking hand painting,
which finally lead to the creation of spherical sculptural object encrusted in beech
nuts. It was wonderful to watch as the beech nuts went through a process of
transformation from the hard, spiky almond shapes, which slowly opened up like
flower petals to reveal the oily seeds that they had been protecting.
The quiet and supportive space of Milford House allows me to further explore
notions of the traumatized female medical body. In particular I have been
researching about the use of nylon and plastic man-made medical devices, which
are regularly inserted into female bodies. Part of this process led me to create a
life-size mesh made of plastic flagging tape (used to identify exterior boundaries
and dangerous areas).
Although I am drawn to the scale and fecundity of my surroundings it is the
interior formal spaces in Milford house that have resonated with me to date. The
majesty and idiosyncratic character of both the vivid red living room/ library and
the pale blue music room have become a fertile space of exploration for me.