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Caroline Ho-Bich-Tuyen-Dang (Australia),
Niki Hastings-McFall (New Zealand),
Linde Ivimey (Australia),
Mella Jaarsma (Indonesia),
Sharmila Samant (India)
Curators: Lisa Byrne and Christine Clark
Natural Selection is
an exhibition by five artists from Australia, India, Indonesia
and Aotearoa/New Zealand who use material culture, their personal
environments and social histories to explore local and global
issues. Materials such as animal bones, earth, stones, recycled
containers and international commodity items are used in
subversive and often humorous ways to challenge the notions of
memory, obsolescence and cultural authenticity and tease out
other inconsistencies in contemporary consumer culture.
Caroline Ho-Bich-Tuyen Dang
uses stone, paper, string and plastic nets to investigate the
idea of memory, permanency and the environment. Dang is
interested in the metaphysical life of objects, rather than their
functionality. She has participated in many group and solo shows
including International touring exhibition Art & Land,
2001 and was invited to take part in the Burragorang
International Artists Workshop, 2003.
Melbourne based artist Linde
Ivimey creates characters that are reliquaries of her
contemporary existence. Materials such as bones from meals shared
with friends and old pieces of fabric from cherished garments,
imbue the works with memory and create symbolic connections
between the personal and spiritual sides of her life. A survey of
Ivimey's work was seen at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2004, in
the same year she was a finalist in the National Gallery of
Australia's Sculpture Prize and featured prominently at The
Melbourne Art Fair.
The notion of cultural
authenticity is a strong focus in the work of Mella Jaarsma.
Her elaborate costume installations emphasise issues of racial
diversity and cultural difference in the context of what she sees
as a waning tolerance for multi-ethnic and multi-religious
societies. Recent exhibitions include the 5th International
Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, Venice Lido Italy; Site
+ Sight: translating cultures, Singapore 2002 and Sydney's Asian
Traffic in 2004.
Niki Hastings-McFall
invents new histories for mass-produced consumer items and by
products such as plastic flowers and plastic soya sauces
containers by turning them into delicate, colourful and strangely
quirky, culturally loaded works with a humorous, Pacific skew.
Niki has exhibited widely in New Zealand and abroad including
Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002 and Paradise
Now? New York, 2004. Her work is in private and public
collections including Te Papa, Dowse and Chartwell.
Core concerns for Sharmila
Samant are consumer capitalism and globalisation. Her work
explores the homogenising effect brought on by the exploitation
of cheap and highly skilled labour by powerful multinationals. In
this installation she exposes the realities of the manufacture of
'designer' labels by re-working garments made in the sweatshops
of Mumbai and rejected by European fashion houses. Samant has
been selected for international residencies such as Gasworks,
London and Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Her installations have been
included in major international exhibitions such as Century
City at Tate Modern, 2001.
All exhibitions continue until Sunday 16 October 2005
Gallery hours are Tuesday - Sunday 1.00pm - 6.00pm.
For further information and/or images please contact
Jan Duffy on 9209 6794 or
email info@lindenarts.org
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Natural Selection
Natural Selection explores the transformative potential of material culture in the varied
works of five artists from Australia, India, Indonesia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Each
artist, employing a different approach to the material use of objects, investigates
alternative applications for items such as animal bones, earth, stones, recycled
containers and international commodity items. Drawing on their immediate personal
and cultural experiences the works on exhibition bring astute yet sensitive, and at
times humorous, approaches to issues that are both local and global in context.
Artists Caroline Ho-Bich-Tuyen Dang (Australia, born in Vietnam),
Niki Hastings-McFall (Aotearoa/New Zealand), Linde Ivimey (Australia),
Mella Jaarsma (Indonesia, born in the Netherlands) and Sharmila Samant (India)
Curators Lisa Byrne and Christine Clark
Slide talk with exhibiting artist Niki Hastings-McFall
and walking tour by curator Lisa Byrne
1 :30pm Saturday 17 September
Niki Hastings-McFall transforms mass produced items of consumer culture into
delicate, colourful and humorous works. Scouring bargain stores allover Auckland,
Ishe invents and visualises new histories for seemingly bland, abundant consumer
items that surround us in our daily lives. Materials favoured by Hastings-McFall include ~
1various types of plastic flowers, plastic soya sauce fish, nylon thread, and any other
small unit items she can source. Hastings-McFall will give a slide talk about the work in
Natural Selection and her broader practice.
Natural Selection curator Lisa Byrne will give a walking tour of the exhibition. Lisa
Byrne is currently Director of the Canberra Contemporary Art Space where she has
worked with numerous artists across varied career levels on the realisation of major
solo and group exhibitions. These have included Artificially Reconstructed Habitats,
Diet Mon Droit, Howl, Witnessing to Silence with Mella Jaarsma, Nindityo Adipurnomo
and Santiago Bose in 2003 and Nadine Christensen's A Specially Built Ruin in 2005.
Slide talks with exhibiting artists:
Mella Jaarsma and Linde Ivimey
and walking tour with curator Christine Clark
3pm Sunday 16 October
Mella Jaarsma (The Netherlands/Indonesia) and Linde Ivimey (Australia) will give
illustrated talks about their works in Natural Selection and their broader artistic practices.
Dutch-born Mella Jaarsma has lived in Yogyakata, Indonesia for more than twenty
years. Her recent practice explores the ideas of considering other people's identities
and the notion of shelter. Through her elaborate costume installations Jaarsma plays
with preconceived notions of cultural norms and boundaries. She emphasises issues
of cultural difference and racial diversity in the context of what she sees as a waning
tolerance for multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies.
Jaarsma's recent exhibitions include the 5th International Exhibition of Sculptures and
Installations, Venice Lido Italy; Site + Sight: translating cultures, Singapore in 2002 and
Sydney's Asian Traffic in 2004.
Australian artist Linde Ivimey is well known for her fanciful creatures made from used
material, bone, teeth and her own hair. Often seen as grotesque, these uneasy yet
delicate works are inspired by various stories such as the lives of saints, pagan beliefs
and those that are intensely personal.
A survey of Ivimey's work was seen at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2003, in the
same year she was a finalist in the National Gallery of Australia's Sculpture Prize and
last year she featured prominently at The Melbourne Art Fair.
Natural Selection curator Christine Clark will give a walking tour of the exhibition. She
is currently an independent writer and arts manager, is published widely in Australia
and overseas and has worked on a number of significant exhibitions including
Canberra Contemporary Art Spaces' Witnessing to Silence in 2003 and The Museum
of Brisbane's recent Echoes of Home: memory and mobility in recent austral-asian art.
ADMISSION FREE
NO BOOKINGS REQUIRED
Linden-St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts
26 Acland Street St Kilda 3182
Telephone 0392096794
email info@lindenarts.org
www.lindenarts.org
Linden is assisted by the City of Port Phillip
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