Snap! (You Have Nothing to Reconnect But Your Chains)
Catherine Ryan
18 Jun–12 Jul 2025
Snap! (You Have Nothing to Reconnect But Your Chains) tells the tragicomic story of one of the plaster statues adorning the interior of Victoria’s Legislative Council in Parliament House. The chamber is decorated with eight statues of female figures in a European, “neoclassical” style. Finished in 1856, they represent values important to the newly-established Victorian colony. Each statue holds a different symbolic object: Justice holds scales and a sword; Glory plays a trumpet, etc.
Originally, one of the figures held a broken chain, symbolising “Liberty”. During restoration work in the early 20th century, a workman came across the broken chain and decided that it needed to be “fixed”. The chain was reconnected to the wall. This overzealous correction was not noticed immediately. Once it came to the attention of Parliamentary authorities, the statue was declared to represent “Connection to Tradition” or “Unity”. The irony went unacknowledged.
The work draws on the travails of this political decor to critically examine the idea of connection to tradition and the telling of origin stories about the settler-colonial society of Victoria. The retelling of the story is aided by disembodied vocal samples taken from iconic songs by pop and disco divas.
Snap! is an ongoing project. It has been presented as a performance lecture by PACT at Performance Space (Sydney) and at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute by Composite Gallery. This is its first outing as a video work.
This project was supported by the VCA50 Creative Development Grant, funded by Mr Konfir Kabo. This project has also been supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants and by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
Snap! is an ambitious research-based project, realised as both a performance lecture and as a two-channel video essay. The work uses the tragicomic story of one of the neoclassical statues that adorns Victoria’s Legislative Council in Parliament House to examine settler-colonial origin narratives. The retelling of the story is aided by disembodied vocal samples taken from iconic songs by pop and disco divas.
This project was supported by the VCA50 Creative Development Grant, funded by Mr Konfir Kabo. This project has also been supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants and by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.
Catherine Ryan
Catherine Ryan is an artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). She makes sound work and projected video work, as well as performance lectures. Her practice interrogates the limited (and limiting) ways in which neoliberal frameworks conceptualise our relationship to time and temporality. She often uses resources and ideas taken from the history of experimental electronic music, as well as the overanalysis and ‘misuse’ of well-known, cheesy pop songs. Catherine is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Art at RMIT University.