We are now seeking proposals from curators, artists, and writers to present as part of our 2022-23 program.
In a recorded artist talk, Amber Smith will be speaking to their four-year educational experience working to obtain their Doctorate title through Deakin University.
Their practice-led research in the realm of objects, thing theory and collection practices has culminated in a body of work accompanying their exegesis. Constellations is showing from Monday 6 December 2021 - Thursday 23 December 2021 in Gallery One at Platform Arts.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Amber Smith is an artist, curator, producer and writer working within the sphere of objects, thing theory and collection practices. They are a current PhD candidate at Deakin University in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. Amber Smith holds a Bachelor of Design Arts (Visual Arts) from the Australian Academy of Design and a First-Class Honours Degree in Creative Arts at Deakin University. Amber is the Curator at Platform Arts and an Academic at Lasalle College International, Melbourne (LCIM) and Deakin University.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
From Monday 23 November 2021, all patrons over the age of 12 and 2 months must show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status as a condition of entry. Before you arrive, please make sure you have added your COVID-19 digital certificate to the Service Victoria app or bring printed proof of vaccination with you. You can find more details about how to add your certificate by visiting coronavirus.vic.gov.au
PLATFORM ARTS IS WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE VIA GHERINGHAP STREET ENTRANCE.
FOR ACCESSIBILITY BOOKINGS PLEASE DIRECTLY CONTACT HELLO@PLATFORMARTS.ORG.AU
“ANG AMING PAGKAKAKILANLAN / THIS IS OUR IDENTITY details migratory and diasporic studies, retracing my ancestral roots and understanding the complexities of the two places I call home - The Philippines and Australia.
Through photography, audio-interview, video work and archival materials, this body of work explores the question of ‘what is the importance of decolonizing methodologies to preserve our Filipino culture?’. Unpacking this question through an autoethnographic lens, I begin to uncover memories that have been lost, people who have departed, and lived experiences that shape one’s identity.
This is reflected through the themes of ‘Lupain/Land’, ‘Lengguwahe/Language’, ‘Kultura/Culture’, and ‘Kusina/Kitchen’, where I begin to explore colonial influences within Filipino culture but conclude with the importance of amplifying indigenous practices that these influences have been adapted from the themes of Kultura and Lupain display an avenue of reconnection to my ancestors, where the interconnection of my Filipina and Australian identity is uncovered by weaving together physical photographs with woven fabrics and archival material. Lengguwahe uncovers the significance of language, which ties us to certain events and environments we are associated with. Kusina becomes a visual representation of intergenerational practice that bind together three generations. Each theme reflects on the interconnection of my Filipina and Australian identity, where I pay my respect to my ancestors, to my family, and to those who have contributed to our Filipino identity.”
Coleen Caday is a Filipina emerging artist who explores the notions of identity and representation within her practice. Born in San Juan, Metro Manila, Caday migrated to Australia at the age of 5. It is through Caday’s creative practice that she begins to unpack the significance of the people and places that she encounters in her life. Caday graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2020 with a double major in Anthropology and Photography. She then proceeded into her honours in creative Arts in 2021 with a focus on decolonizing methodologies to preserve Filipino culture.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
From Monday 23 November 2021, all patrons over the age of 12 and 2 months must show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status as a condition of entry. Before you arrive, please make sure you have added your COVID-19 digital certificate to the Service Victoria app or bring printed proof of vaccination with you. You can find more details about how to add your certificate by visiting coronavirus.vic.gov.au
PLATFORM ARTS IS WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE VIA GHERINGHAP STREET ENTRANCE.
FOR ACCESSIBILITY BOOKINGS PLEASE DIRECTLY CONTACT HELLO@PLATFORMARTS.ORG.AU
Constellations is an investigation into the methodologies, functions and thresholds of collections, display and world-building within contemporary art. It speaks to the interconnected and multifarious nature of things, and through diagrammatic practices, it addresses the individual’s constant battle against the inevitable dispersal and (dis/re)organisation of these things. Looking to material culture as a mass infinite network of adjacent and cosmic associations, it applies the language of archives and the Wunderkammer to communicate the complex and often arbitrary taxonomic systems that we use to control and understand the world we live in — and the objects that fill it.
Constellations draws on a diverse range of references across history, culture and art, using language, image and object to represent connections in the collection. These images function in a feedback loop – simultaneously creating and destroying elegant musings and clusterfucks of information – colliding, intersecting, diverging and dispersing. They also postulate on how a collection practice can operate in an increasingly digital and non-physical landscape.
By becoming the rag-picker of fringe culture, anti-capitalist collating and the fields of the autodidacts, Smith comments on contemporary culture’s fascination with information, organisation and narrative. Through subverting these systems, they contemplate on the individual’s place within society and the role that objects, semiology and myth play in meaning-making processes. Now more than ever we are aware of the content that surrounds us — material/digital, subject/object, human/thing — and the transcendence of this content.
Amber Smith is an artist, curator, producer and writer working within the sphere of objects, thing theory and collection practices. They are a current PhD candidate at Deakin University in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. Amber Smith holds a Bachelor of Design Arts (Visual Arts) from the Australian Academy of Design and a First-Class Honours Degree in Creative Arts at Deakin University. Amber is the Curator at Platform Arts and an Academic at Lasalle College International, Melbourne (LCIM) and Deakin University.
Constellations is the final outcome of Amber Smith’s PhD at Deakin University.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
From Monday 23 November 2021, all patrons over the age of 12 and 2 months must show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status as a condition of entry. Before you arrive, please make sure you have added your COVID-19 digital certificate to the Service Victoria app or bring printed proof of vaccination with you. You can find more details about how to add your certificate by visiting coronavirus.vic.gov.au
Accessibility requirements:
- Geelong Botanic Gardens has a ramp to the main entrance.
- People in wheelchairs or with prams can access some parts of the gardens.
- Other paths are not accessible as they have steps.
- Some paths are asphalt and relatively easy grades.
- Some paths are gravel which you may need assistance with.
*The walk will be self directed and will not require participants to go beyond their personal comfort.
Please see map for access points and bathrooms within the gardens:
https://www.geelongaustralia.c...
FIELD TRIP places people at the centre of a dynamic and collective community activation of ancient crafts and performance. Geelong catchment boasts hives of creatives pursuing their art practice regardless of commercial attention. This project is about these hidden resources. How might their skill sets be the survival skills for millennials? COVID-19 has compounded barriers to creative skill acquisition for young people arising from screen-facing education and leisure. We position ‘creative’ as ‘clever’ through participation, intergenerational exchange, and collective creative activities, embracing ‘old ways of doing things’ as the essential ‘new way’ for today’s communities.
‘I have decided that I don’t want to try and be an artist anymore, Helen’.
‘Miranda, sometimes I just sit and wonder why I didn’t become a botanist’.
Recently, we have found ourselves having conversations about the nature of art and where artistic practice is situated in our own lives. What does it mean to be an artist? Can we relate to that word if we’re not always making works? Perhaps our creative practice, both collaborative and individual, is a guiding light of curiosity and a means in which we navigate our worlds.
This session will be centred around a gentle re-emergence into processes of making individually, together and as a group. We will wander, picnic and talk in the Geelong Botanical Gardens and be guided by the plants that call this site home. In the second half of our session, we will use collected materials to make and respond to what we have observed around us. We will look to creative practice as a means of observation and curiosity.
Miranda Jarvis is a gardener, artist and arts worker. Her creative practice explores a sense of place, the environment and materiality. Miranda graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons) in 2018.
Helen Demetriou is a visual artist who explores concepts through intuition, play and humour. Her practice is environmentally conscious and involves using repurposed and recycled materials. Helen graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons) in 2018.
ITINERARY:
11.00-12.00pm: Platform Arts, 60 Little Malop Street, Wadawurrung Country
Participants will meet out the front of Platform Arts at 11.00am and walk through the city, and along the waterfront, to the Geelong Botanic Gardens. Coffee stops will be made! Alternatively participants can meet us at the entrance to the gardens.
12.00-1.30pm: Geelong Botanical Gardens, Wadawurrung Country. Participants will be given ‘directions’ that will guide them on a walk around the gardens, encouraging us all to explore and observe using intuition and intention. What can plants teach us about creative practice? Some like Kalkalla (Pigs Face) show us that strength can through our networks and relationships, others like the Xanthorrhoea Australis (Austral Grasstree) remind us that sometimes good things take time.
1.30-3pm: At this time participants will be able to snack and eat lunch; sitting together in a picnic setting. They will be provided with repurposed materials, scissors, and glue, and prompted to play and experiment to make small pieces such as poems or collages. Working together will be encouraged as collaboration is a key part of our process.
Attendees will be able to wander off from the Gardens after the session.
Please bring:
- Lunch (we will provide snacks. Please advise of any allergies)
- Smartphone/camera
- Picnic rug/blanket
22/07/2021: A message from Helen and Miranda following the event’s postponement.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
From Monday 23 November 2021, all patrons over the age of 12 and 2 months must show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status as a condition of entry. Before you arrive, please make sure you have added your COVID-19 digital certificate to the Service Victoria app or bring printed proof of vaccination with you. You can find more details about how to add your certificate by visiting coronavirus.vic.gov.au
PLATFORM ARTS IS WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE VIA GHERINGHAP STREET ENTRANCE.
FOR ACCESSIBILITY BOOKINGS PLEASE DIRECTLY CONTACT HELLO@PLATFORMARTS.ORG.AU
FIELD TRIP places people at the centre of a dynamic and collective community activation of ancient crafts and performance. Geelong catchment boasts hives of creatives pursuing their art practice regardless of commercial attention. This project is about these hidden resources. How might their skill sets be the survival skills for millennials? We position ‘creative’ as ‘clever’ through participation, intergenerational exchange, and collective creative activities, embracing ‘old ways of doing things’ as the essential ‘new way’ for today’s communities.
AIREYS INLET: In Motion with Jessica Lesosky, Kirstin Honey + Eliza Feely.
In Motion will bring together multidisciplinary artists to collaborate using sound and movement. The Great Otway National Park will be our site, using the natural environment as our inspiration for creative exploration.
Development of movement will be facilitated through a variety of creative explorations using the body, dance movement, playing with levels, shapes, and sounds. This workshop is accessible to all bodies, and you do not need a dance background.
Using improvisation, we will use the various mediums to explore the dynamic movement of the spiral: coil, twist, whirl, revolve, orbit, circle, turn. What does the spiral represent for everyone involved? The spiral is in all levels of life, nature, and universe, representing nature's life-inducing, life protecting and life supporting energy.
Attendees wishing to travel by courtesy bus will meet at Platform Arts venue at 10AM and will be taken by bus to the venue. The session will run for 3 hours, with participants returning to Platform Arts at 3PM.
Community Crits aim to foster community and critical dialogue for artists.
If you’re seeking stimulating company and discussion, join the Platform Reading Group!
Inspired by conversations between artists in lockdown, the Reading group aims to connect and sustain relationships by unpacking material and contributing to the poly-narrative of the arts and culture. Delivered online, there are no geographical limitations and all are welcome to contribute to this safe space. Prior to each monthly session, a new reading or stimulus will be assigned and members will have time to reflect beforehand. Bring along your questions and notes, or just listen to the discussion.
All are welcome - you do not have to be an artist! Spaces limited to 30 people.
First session reading: What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want? by W. J. T. Mitchell.
Session led by Amber Smith
Community Crits aim to foster community and critical dialogue for artists.
Pictured, North Youth Theatre ensemble. Photo by Sarah Walker.
Left to right: Abraham Herasan, Alphonse Mulashe, Beckham (Bach) Dong, Eto Claudine, Fiston Baraka, Irene Bakulikira, Keak Joak, Nina Untivero and Sila Toprak. Not pictured, Ali Hosseini.
Written by Abraham Herasan, Sila Toprak, Keak Joak.
Directed by Dave Kelman.
Composed by Callum Watson.
Eight characters, seven real stories and one made up. From Vietnam to South Sudan, from Rwanda to Iran, experience stories of love, desperation and luck told through music, dance, poetry and gritty theatre. One question: are there any happy endings?
Take a journey into cultural complexity. MOTH tells the stories of eight characters from different times and different countries based on the real experiences of cast members and their friends and families. Interwoven with these stories are the actors’ reflections on who they are, where they have come from and how it feels to be living in a society that struggles to embrace difference.
Written by the ensemble and told through fast-paced, funny theatre, MOTH spans Congo, Philippines, Iran, Vietnam, Turkey, Rwanda and Tanzania and moves from the 1960s to the present day. Original music, song and rap drive the narrative to its surprising conclusion.
Directed by Dave Kelman and presented by Geelong's only ensemble of people of colour, North Youth Theatre in partnership with Bluebird Foundation and Platform Arts, MOTH includes an original music score created by local award-winning composer Callum Watson.
"Maps of the Heart is about the journey of coming of age and trying to find your place in the world. It culminates with the story being told by people who either lived the experience in their native country or were told of the experience here in Australia. The cast has found each other, and they indirectly explain how these stories helped forge their destiny and its role in finding their own place in the world."
- Abraham Herasan, NYT Ensemble Member
Showing over two nights, from 10 - 11 SEP 2021 at Platform Arts, MOTH is a must-see performance.
DUE TO COVID-RESTRICTIONS, PLATFORM ARTS EVENTS WILL BE CAPPED AS PER STATE GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES REGARDING RESTRICTED VENUE CAPACITY.
Unfortunately due to the ongoing Melbourne lockdown, this event has been cancelled.
Join us for an evening of immersive live performances by the artists featured in SOFT EDGES.
On Sunday 22 August, immerse yourself in sculpture, video, sound and experimental performance when the artists in SOFT EDGES respond to George Goodnow’s reimagined road signs and streetscape sculptures in an hour-long live performance in Gallery One.
Experience artist and performer DANDROGYNY bend and reimagine gender, directions and hi-vis through dance and experimental performance; witness engineer, songwriter and producer Aphir create frequency-bending electronic choral soundwaves in response to ideas of strength and softness; and watch video artist Carla Zimbler blur the lines between physical and digital environments, expanding and contracting sound-responsive visuals. See the works of these 4 artists coalesce in a collaborative effort that explores notions of friendship, gender and orientation.
Event curated by George Goodnow.
HOLD SPACE is a night of poetry in response to the artwork and the themes of HOLD, showing in Gallery Two until 20 August 2021.
The night will feature poetry readings from exhibiting artists and local poets. There will be an open mic list on the night open to all. Beginners and total rookies are very welcome and so very encouraged. You are invited to come, sit, listen. Or stand up and share. There’s space for you.
HOLD SPACE will be held offsite at Valhalla Taproom at 12 - 14 Union Street Geelong on Wednesday 21 July 2021.
Arrive at 7.00PM for a 7.30PM start, running until 9.00PM.
---------------------
A hand to hold. A hand holds a knife. All that hands can do. All they can inflict. The body is a vessel. You contain multitudes. Muscle memory, knowledge & wisdom, secrets & memories, all the collected layers. Debris & detritus and dirt ground into palms, old scars and new scabs and skin stitching it together.
The cells of you are imbued with all you have passed through, and all that has passed through you. The inner of you is held by flesh and clothes and furniture and room and house and universe. We leave something of ourselves in all we touch.
Wait: don’t move yet. Hold is a taut line. There is tension here - a rope without slack. But tenderness too. Who grasps it? Who cuts it? Lean forward, reach out & embrace. Don’t let me go.
The Ensemble are seeking artists aged 10-18 who are interested in devising and performing new projects.
This event has been cancelled. Please view the guided meditation video by Sasha Alexandria, commissioned by Platform Arts.
Make time for self-love and engage with the themes and artworks of HOLD in this special self-love meditation event.
Led by exhibiting artist Sasha Alexandria, this is an invitation to be present and to connect deeper with yourself and your body. The evening will be a short exercise in self-care, involving guided meditation & self-reflection.
Wear comfy clothes, bring a journal and something to write with, and a cushion or blanket to sit on.
Please arrive at 6:45PM for a 7PM start. The event will finish at 8PM.
———-
Fuelled by passion and curiosity for the human experience Sasha’s expressive art exposes an honest depiction of how it feels to live in a human suit.
Emerging figurative artist Sasha Alexandria, from the Macedon Ranges juxtaposes realistic renditions with abstract gestural oil paint to amplify the weight of human emotions and the tension of nature. Her revealing portraits fantasise flesh through contrasted, angular strokes that imitate the gravity and feeling of the body. The artist chooses to present prior layers of charcoal, poetic interlay, drips and playful mistakes to evoke the presence of a soul, inviting the viewer to complete the painting with their ideals and personal conditioning. She confronts the superficial male gaze by exploring nudity and intimacy as a reflection of the nakedness of the psyche. Sasha creates without a veil, she unmasks the Jungian shadow through the synergy of evident ‘mistakes’ and the disparity of emotion expressed in her paint work. This demonstrates all facets of self, life and death; as the essence of life lies in one's vulnerability. To Sasha, painting is psychological, what one perceives in the artist’s work is a mirror of the viewer's personal experience that cannot be replicated.
Former Ford factory workers are invited to reconnect and view Kaitlyn Church’s Fordtown exhibtion.
An expanded documentary project that explores the impact that the closure of the Ford Motor Company's manufacturing facilities has had on the city of Geelong.
Ditch the tracksuit (optional), fix yourself a drink, pick a snazzy background and join us this Friday night for a celebratory soft virtual gathering and in-conversation with the artists from ‘Soft Edges’. In lieu of our scheduled ENCORE performance and closing events, George Goodnow, Aphir, Carla Zimbler and DANDROGYNY open up the floor for questions about anything and everything.
In this live and open Q+A, ask the artists about the inspiration behind ‘Soft Edges’, their multidisciplinary practices and how they have been passing the time in lockdown. To accompany this, the artists will be sharing sound and video works, as well as updating us on their current projects.
This event will be held via Zoom; details and link will be emailed to registered participants.
THURS 15 JULY, 7.00PM - SOLD OUT
FRI 16 JULY, 11.00AM - LIMITED SEATS
FRI 16 JULY, 7.00PM
SAT 17 JULY, 7.00PM
WEDS 21 JULY, 7.00PM - LIMITED SEATS
CREDITS
Written by James Jackson & Elizabeth Brennan
Directed by Daniel Lammin
Produced by Sophie Ashkanasy
Stage Manager: Shannon Brown
Set and Costume Designer: Nathan Burmeister
Lighting Designer: John Collopy
Sound Designer and Composer: Kellie-Anne Kimber
Dramaturg: Justin Gardam
Assistant Director: Kathryn Yates
Set and Costume Associate: Samantha Hastings
Please note, ticket sales are currently on-hold during the snap lockdown in Victoria. Please keep an eye out for updates in your inbox, or on social media.
Why do we to suffer? There is only one answer: MAN. We are being robbed of everything.
One of the most brutal stories ever told. Written by one of the most incisive and subversive writers of the twentieth century.
Adapted by Platform residency alumni The Bloomshed, George Orwell’s fierce critique of power is funnelled through a contemporary context that sees political oppression, extremism, misinformation and food production erupt into an all-out assault on our contemporary political landscape. Animal Farm is a high-octane mess of punk-protest, political allegory and epic theatre with a rhythm beaten out on abandoned grain silos.
If you want to make an omelette, you’ve got to crack some eggs.
Performed by Laura Aldous, Emma Batty, Elizabeth Brennan, Amanda Dhammanarachchi, James Jackson, Anna Louey, James Malcher, Sam Nix, Emily O'Connor, Lindsay Tempelton and Malith.
The Bloomshed was formed seven years ago by James Jackson, James Hogan, Tom Molyneux and Elizabeth Brennan, when they began creating work in Jackson’s backyard shed.
They cannibalise work that already exists, looking for ways to highlight the contradictions internal to the structure of our society. The Bloomshed has toured shows to Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth, winning numerous accolades and nominations for their energetic, uncomfortable, and politically-charged work.
“Political theatre dredged from the crisis of late capitalism”
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ THE AGE
“A genre-defying production”
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐THEATRE NOW SYDNEY
“The Bloomshed have established themselves firmly as experts in reanimating older texts, bastardising classic texts to create cutting, political contemporary theatre.”
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ THEATRE PEOPLE
Mundane Jane debuts their high-energy, melodic brand of rock and roll at Platform.
Please note, this exhibition contains works of a sexual nature and depictions of nudity.
DUE TO COVID-RESTRICTIONS, PLATFORM ARTS EVENTS WILL BE CAPPED AS PER STATE GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES REGARDING RESTRICTED VENUE CAPACITY.
Platform Arts is excited to present multi-medium group show Hold.
Hands crafting, holding clay to make something that will, in turn, hold what it may. A hand to hold. A hand holds a knife, dripping with red. All that hands can do. All they can inflict. The body is a vessel. You contain multitudes. The inner of you is held by flesh, skin, furniture and room and house and universe. Hold is a taut line. There is tension here - a rope without slack. But tenderness too. Who grasps it? Who cuts it?
Hold is a multi-disciplinary group show that includes ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, textile, jewellery, and mixed-media works. Artists include Sasha Alexandria, Sophie Cochrane, Anni Hagberg, Michelle Jing, Sam Kariotis, Sophia Koot, Iona Mackenzie, Jack Paterson, Steph Raad, Rosie Stanton, Mara Schwerdtfeger and Zoe Baumgartner.
The artists involved examine the spaces between tension and slack, force and inaction, intimacy and stillness. Embodied experiences and gestures are outstretched to the audience.
Different mediums are engaged in order to explore various issues of weight. The boundaries and barriers between human, object, nature, are seen and held and dropped. The artists involved invite you to reflect on your relationship with and within your body. They remind us of our place on the earth and the objects that tether us to it. They celebrate intimacy and inner truths.
Hold invites you to reach out your hand and grasp. Hold invites tenderness and strength. Hold invites you in.
You're invited in from opening night, Friday 25 June. Hold concludes Friday 20 August 2021.
------------
See Sasha’s Instagram Here
See Sophie’s Instagram Here
See Anni’s Instagram Here
See Michelle’s Instagram Here
See Sam’s Instagram Here
See Sophia’s Instagram Here
See Iona’s Instagram Here
See Jack’s Instagram Here
See Rosie’s Instagram Here
See Mara’s Instagram Here
See Zoe’s Instagram Here
A multimodal exhibition that reimagines road signs and streetscapes, curated by George Goodnow.
Take the time to be present and hold yourself.
Make space to nurture self love and care.
Created by HOLD artist Sasha Alexandria, this Self Love Meditation is an invitation to sit, reflect, and hold space for yourself and your emotions.
This video meditation was commissioned by Platform Arts.
———
Emerging figurative artist Sasha Alexandria, from the Macedon Ranges juxtaposes realistic renditions with abstract gestural oil paint to amplify the weight of human emotions and the tension of nature. Her revealing portraits fantasise flesh through contrasted, angular strokes that imitate the gravity and feeling of the body.
The artist chooses to present prior layers of charcoal, poetic interlay, drips and playful mistakes to evoke the presence of a soul, inviting the viewer to complete the painting with their ideals and personal conditioning. She confronts the superficial male gaze by exploring nudity and intimacy as a reflection of the nakedness of the psyche.
Sasha creates without a veil, she unmasks the jungian shadow through the synergy of evident ‘mistakes’ and the disparity of emotion expressed in her paint work. This demonstrates all facets of self, life and death; as the essence of life lies in one's vulnerability. To Sasha, painting is psychological, what one perceives in the artist’s work is a mirror of the viewer's personal experience that cannot be replicated.
Fueled by passion and curiosity for the human experience Sasha’s expressive art exposes an honest depiction of how it feels to live in a human suit.
———
See Sasha’s instagram here.
Platform Arts are proud to present our next Artist Talk event will be In Conversation with Aleyna Demet and Jun Evrim.
Currently exhibiting at Platform Arts as part of the May Gallery Exhibition Series, Aleyna Demet's, KiMLiK, and Jun Evrim's, Recall, correlate to tell stories of connection and identity.
KiMLiK is a collection of works by multidisciplinary Turkish-Australian artist, Aleyna Demet, that explore the artist’s mother’s experience of “otherness” and in turn, its effects on herself, as presented across photomontage, sound and installation.
Recall sees Evrim investigate the contexts and concepts of memory, metaphor and materiality. He does this by thoughtfully re-contextualising and reassembling readymade, found and fabricated objects.
Facilitated by head curator, Amber Smith, this In Conversation will take a deep dive into the stories behind the artworks, and take you on a journey from art inception to installation.
———
Aleyna Demet is an emerging fibre artist from Melbourne, Australia. Demet’s work positions itself in the intersection between art and craft, exploring unconventional and contemporary applications for traditional techniques and materials.
Originally from a Turkish background, Demet was raised in a household where craft was primarily done by the women, the products of which held great sentimental value. It is through these contexts that she explores the possibilities of re-contextualising the systems embedded within craft, using it to analyse her own personal histories and empathise the histories of others. It is through these applications that her viewers are able to see with the eyes of others.
———
See Aleyna’s Instagram here
———
Jun Evrim is an artist and designer whose work investigates the contexts and concepts of memory, metaphor and materiality. He does this by thoughtfully re-contextualising and reassembling readymade, found and fabricated objects.
The resulting sculptures and installations are durational, self-reflexive and considered — a personal ethnography — where the revised material compositions are transformed by process of recollection. Evrim thus facilitates a redemption and resolution, where objects give voice to the absent and provide an invitation to the viewer to mediate and contemplate on the universality of human experience.
By reconceptualising memory, and inherited memory, Jun postulates on the relationship between time and space, and the echo of the body that resounds within this.
‘Recall’ is a continuing investigation of the personal and subjective contexts of his object-based practice.
Born in Sydney and raised in Istanbul, Jun currently lives and works in Melbourne.
———
See Jun’s Instagram here
Platform Arts is excited to present early-career artist Aleyna Demet’s first solo exhibition, ‘KiMLiK’. This body of work presents works across photomontage, sound and installation.
Kimlik (Turkish); The qualities, characteristics and identity of a person in the sense of a collective realm; who a person is.
‘KiMLiK’ is a collection of works by multidisciplinary Turkish-Australian artist Aleyna Demet that explore the artist’s mother’s experience of “otherness” and in turn, its effects on herself.
It is an exploration of the artist’s autoethnographic interrogation of culture and family history. In addition, it speaks to the translation of a shared experience of otherness through the realm of migration.
The series portrays the deteriorating effects of migrant trauma, and its effects on following generations in regard to cultural identity and belonging. It reimagines Demet’s mother’s experience from an intergenerational perspective by exploring the in between, and interrogates states of disempowerment and loss.
Join us for the opening of this exhibition on May 14, from 6PM-8PM in Gallery 1.
Exhibition runs until June 18.
———
Aleyna Demet is an emerging fibre artist from Melbourne, Australia. Demet’s work positions itself in the intersection between art and craft, exploring unconventional and contemporary applications for traditional techniques and materials.
Originally from a Turkish background, Demet was raised in a household where craft was primarily done by the women, the products of which held great sentimental value. It is through these contexts that she explores the possibilities of re-contextualising the systems embedded within craft, using it to analyse her own personal histories and empathise the histories of others. It is through these applications that her viewers are able to see with the eyes of others.
———
See Aleyna’s Instagram here
Platform Arts is excited to present early-career artist Jun Evrim’s first solo exhibition, ‘Recall’.
———
Jun Evrim is an artist and designer whose work investigates the contexts and concepts of memory, metaphor and materiality. He does this by thoughtfully re-contextualising and reassembling readymade, found and fabricated objects.
The resulting sculptures and installations are durational, self-reflexive and considered — a personal ethnography — where the revised material compositions are transformed by process of recollection. Evrim thus facilitates a redemption and resolution, where objects give voice to the absent and provide an invitation to the viewer to mediate and contemplate on the universality of human experience.
By reconceptualising memory, and inherited memory, Jun postulates on the relationship between time and space, and the echo of the body that resounds within this.
‘Recall’ is a continuing investigation of the personal and subjective contexts of his object-based practice.
Born in Sydney and raised in Istanbul, Jun currently lives and works in Melbourne.
———
See Jun’s Instagram here
‘Spectral Archive’ is a collaborative collision of new and analogue technology: a maze of bleeding sounds and visuals where the familiar and the uncanny meet, the figurative is abstracted and the abstract is intimate. The exhibition involves sound, video, painting & photography.
Platform Arts is excited to present ‘TOPIA’, a photography series by early-career artist, Madi Whyte.
———
From rural Victoria, Madi Whyte’s practice encompasses sculpture, photography and illustration with an interest in exploring the language of line, form, the cut and the architecture of dystopian landscapes- both sparse and high density. Madi has completed a Bachelor of Design and works in the digitisation of gallery collections.
TOPIA Photographic Series uses finite landscapes as pictorial tropes to explore languages of the line and the cut. This body of work focuses on atypical viewpoints, geographic coordinates and the examination of her composite relationship to various landscapes, forms and Topos.
Influenced by Madi's rural upbringing on Gunditjmara land, the work explores the multifarious and undulating connection shared with the land – and how it behaves as a metaphor, material and teacher. This work proposes the artist as photographer and artist to discover an emblematic and personal correlation between the formal qualities of the rural Australian landscape and the abstracted spatial compositions of her images and sculptural objects. The tightly shot photographs emulate the search for something very specific in the land.
‘TOPIA’ is an ongoing series that is planned to develop with the artist.
Join us for the opening of this exhibition on May 14, from 6PM-8PM in Courtyard Gallery.
Exhibition runs until June 18.
———
See Madi’s Instagram here
