Still from Graceful Malfunctions, Digital video, fabric puppet, 2020, Sarah Cowie
Graceful Malfunctions
by Sarah Cowie
17 April - 8 June 2025
AV Gallery
Graceful Malfunctions uses puppetry, digital video, fabric, and photography to depict a strange and whimsical fabric world, exploring themes of communication, personality, and materiality.
The title ‘Graceful Malfunctions’ refers to Heinrich von Kleist’s description of the movement of puppets as graceful. The grace of the puppet exists in the vitality that occurs in the performance of the materials. A twitch of the puppeteer's arm creates a quiver in the puppet's step, while the light fabric shimmies at the end of taught strings.
The video work of the same name depicts an abstracted story about a journey taken by a group of puppets. Their performance mimics life and the nature of conversation and interaction, while exploring the materiality of the puppets through the activation and malfunction of their material and through a soundtrack comprised of recorded sounds using the puppets. The puppet characters situated alongside the video and photographic works, being separated from their performance context, flicker between performer and inanimate object.
The artist is interested in depicting a skewed sense of reality, using humans’ ability to recognise faces and personality in inanimate objects and material. The puppets, which are both charming and unnerving, encourage a sense of sympathy in their almost person-like appearance, while their ambiguous design reminds the viewer of their materiality.
The works reflect the artist’s own anxieties in socialising. Her puppets play with personality and character, reflecting her fascination with persona and communication. They depict a feeling of strangeness and being out of place, while the drapery creates a sense of comfort. This collaboration between puppet and puppeteer continues the exploration of feeling out of place in a strange world
About the artist:
Sarah Cowie is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She works with puppetry and fabric art, using digital media such as video and photography to perform her puppet works. She also works with collage and illustration, and is influenced by film and theatre. In her video and photographic work, the lush fabric scenery, strange human-like creature designs and ambiguous storytelling create an uncanny sense of playfulness and uneasiness. She is interested in puppets’ ability to mimic reality, and uses puppetry to explore themes of materiality, communication, and social anxiety.
In 2021 she graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a Master of Fine Arts achieved with Honours