Art on Show during Futurelands2!
Two weeks to go and we are excited to announce that three fabulous art projects will be in show during Futurelands2. Genevieve Murray’s The Nomadic Office will be installed in the Kandos Community Hall for the full weekend – pop in to have a conversation about the past and future of rural stock routes. Meanwhile 60 metres of Yarned River, created by the eminent Knitting Nannas, will be installed in the window of Kandos Projects. Knitters Tracy Sorensen and Vianne Tourle will be at the forum and will no doubt welcome a chat. Gilbert Grace’s bamboo/hemp bicycle will also be in display, while across the road you’ll discover his hempcrete wall. That’s under construction as we speak, so we’ll be keeping you updated!
The Nomadic Office
Genevieve Murray // Future Method Studio
Future Method is a research and design studio that actively questions and pushes the line between the practical and the abstract. Founded by Genevieve Murray in 2013, Future Method works collaboratively with creatives and academics who form their praxis in-between established notions of contemporary architecture & art — seeking to extend and enrich the field of interdisciplinarity and collective culture and push them into the public domain.
Future Method Studio, in collaboration with the University of Sydney, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, is exploring the significance of the Travelling Stock Routes and proposing future use strategies. They are at Futurelands to find out what you know about their history or what ideas you have for their future use.
This project is commissioned by the New Landscapes Institute for the exhibition “The Long Paddock” (Wagga Wagga Art Galley – May 2017). Nomadic Office was designed in collaboration with Isabelle Duner.
Yarned River
Craftivism can provide the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down. It’s frippery that can pack a punch. Its charm is like a stealth bomb, relying on surprise to disarm the opposition. It brings women into the struggle that might not have found a spot otherwise, and when it comes to being arrested by the cops, they make it hard.
So when it came time to defend the Macquarie River from a proposal to siphon off water for a gold mine, a group of us came forth with hooks and needles. Over just a few weeks, our representation of the Macquarie River from its source between Oberon and Bathurst and its final reaches in the marshes out past Warren (thence to join the great Murray Darling) rapidly grew to about 50 metres in length.
The Macquarie/Wambool river. Photo by Tracy Sorenson
Isabel Higgins with a hand-written sign outside council chambers, Feb 2016. The yarned river can be seen snaking towards the door of council chambers. Photo by Tracy Sorensen.
How do you get something as gentle and unprepossessing as crochet or knitting to actually speak loud enough to be heard? If you’re a celebrity artist, then you can do it on your own, but if you’re a common or garden amateur craftsperson, the best bet is through aggregation. Something that isn’t up to much alone can take on a whole lot of wow factor if you get lots and lots of people to contribute. In our river, hours and hours of love and attention are present in every stitch. So 60 metres of hand-made textile is a lot of work and a lot of love. It’s a loud voice. It symbolises how powerful we can be when we get together. We might not have money or influence but we do have numbers.
Find out more here: http://www.rahamim.org.au/blog/2016/2/1/water-more-precious-than-gold-yarning-about-the-river-at-rahamim
Here’s a link to the YouTube clip about it (2 min):
Bamboo bicycle
Take a look at this earlier post which described the progress of Gilbert Grace’s bamboo bicycle project. Since then, multi award winning Indonesian design team, Singgih Kartono and his partner Tri, makers of Spedaggi bamboo bikes, have visited Sydney and there is optimism in the air about the possibility of working collaboratively in the future. Apart from bamboo, the prototype bicycle on display in Kandos Projects shows off the value of hemp fibre as a vital ingredient in its construction. Meanwhile, across the road, a hempcrete wall in progress – with materials sourced from Australian Hemp Masonry – and provides another illustration of the value of hemp. Both bamboo and hemp are declared weed species in Australia: Gilbert Grace’s project tells a different story about their sustainable uses in industrial and agricultural contexts.
