Deep Material Energy II
Touring Exhibition
An evolving exhibition of contemporary jewellery/body adornment and objects by eight makers from Aotearoa New Zealand, and Melbourne Australia; Kelly McDonald, Victoria McIntosh, Neke Moa, Rowan Panther, Claire McArdle, Cara Johnson, Inari Kiuru and Lisa Waup, with curator Heather Galbraith.
First iteration is presented as part of Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne 4-12 September 2021, with a Public Zoom Webinar Saturday 11 September 2021 (4pm NZ time, 2pm Naarm/Melbourne time), and the launch of this website.
Claire McArdle, Cara Johnson, Inari Kiuru, Kelly McDonald, Victoria McIntosh, Neke Moa, Rowan Panther, and Lisa Waup.
4 makers from Aotearoa NZ (McDonald, McIntosh, Moa and Panther), and 4 makers based in Naarm/Melbourne (McArdle, Johnson, Kiuru and Waup), whose practices involve a deep and holistic engagement with materiality and process, within a context of working in Aotearoa NZ and Australia, within Moana Oceania.
Starting with an online conversation in September 2021, the project will evolve through 2022 and 2023 into exhibitions, with insights into process and presentations noted here in this online repository.
These practices all demonstrate a deep connection with, and curiosity about, the materials they work with. Their investigations stem from the cultural and political resonances of materials and processes of making, shaping, and transforming. Each maker approaches this distinctly, talking to the rich complexity of cultural connections they bring to their work. Their interrogation of materials are intense and ongoing, acutely aware of the histories and legacies of the materials and making processes they employ. This includes the pre-body adornment/craft-object life of the stone, shells, seeds, textiles, plant matter e.g. muka/flax fibre, bone, kelp, concrete, found materials, and metals they are using.
These materials carry associations and cultural knowledge; and each maker explores how they attend to these, and how their labours of transformation offer an opportunity to consider historical associations and the object’s potential. They demonstrate advanced technical skills, deriving from historical precedent, yet they do not seek to replicate things that have come before, rather they enquire, how can this object, invite new engagements of substance? These enquiries are grounded through being based in Aotearoa NZ and Australia in the Pacific, spanning indigenous knowledge systems through to interrogation of settler-colonialism, and Western understandings of feminism.