Callum Morton's BROKEN HOMES

"... a martian landing on planet Earth for the first time would learn less about this species called humans from museums and concert halls, than it would from the places these humans call home; where they sleep, build families, make love, dream of freedom and retreat from the world's pressures." -Andrew Mackenzie

Callum Morton's Valhalla has many conceptual elements to us relating to the way we live, inhabit space and have social structures forced upon us. Andrew Mackenzie's review of the work enlightens us that not only is Valhalla the Nordic mythological 'Hall of the Slain', it is also a broken home and metaphor for historical and contemporary battlefields. Mackenzie talks about the work in relation to 'modern day ruins in Afghanistan... the splintered bones of the World Trade Centre to Palestinian homes dozed to rubble'. 

Mackenzie emphasises the fact that Morton's work isn't autobiographical: psychoanalysis is not necessary in interpreting the work. An interesting part of the work is that it is situated 'between the private and public domains of Venice'. It is theme parked size i.e. 3/4 the size of a normal house but not immediately recognizable as art to passers-by. Morton is interested in private and public space and believes that 'the question of habitation is inseparable from public and political life'. Mackenzie describes the piece as being 'a site of profound tension... between the private and the public'.

Mackenzie's analysis and interpretation of Morton's work gives the reader a great insight to the conceptual density of Morton's work. He mentions the fact that Australia is 'in the grips of an obsession with the internalising of domestic space'. A home, something which we don't often think about very much, can be seen as representative for a number of things. Mackenzie says Valhalla is 'a monument to a home broken by time and the proclivities of real estate... to the ravaging force of economy over ideology'.