19 February – 13 March 2010 Opening: Thursday 18 February 6 – 8pm
Free Artist Floor Talk: Thursday 11 March 12.30 – 1.30pm
Gallery 1 Wanda Gillespie Tana Swiwi
Located deep in the Java Sea, the long lost island of Tana Swiwi has caused great curiosity over the past few centuries. In the Museum of Lost Worlds’ latest uncovering, this mystical realm is visited through reconstructed artefacts and ritual.
An ornate, twisted, dragon-like periscope and a lawnmower-shaped carriage are evidence of the island’s existence. A re-enactment of a traditional trance-inducing Tana Swiwi ceremony will draw viewers in through its hypnotic effect.
Rather than taking an orthodox museum approach, the Museum of Lost Worlds displays these items in a more theatrical fashion in an attempt to engage viewers to dream about the gaps in what is already a highly conjectured piece of history.
Wanda Gillespie is a Melbourne-based conceptual artist interested in the malleable nature of history, materialising the immaterial, and narrative. Wanda has recently completed an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts and was recipient of the Vulcan Steel sculpture award. This project began on an Asialink residency to Indonesia in 2007 and has been gratefully funded by Arts Victoria and the Anthony Ganim Postgraduate Award.
Gallery 2 Torie Nimmervoll Objecthood: Study C
Objecthood: Study C is the final part of a three-part series of works interested in objects located in the home and exploring different household environments. Prior to the exhibition Nimmervoll sent out a survey to people asking them about certain objects they possess in their home including the quantity and colour of these objects. Objecthood: Study C is a collection of grouped objects that represent the results of several surveys. Each object will be made of different materials, however the surface finish is uniform and they will be coloured in vivid soft pastels, appearing like a three-dimensional statistical graph.
Torie Nimmervoll’s practice covers a diversity of mediums such as drawing, sculpture, installation, durational process and performance. Nimmervoll’s work is concept-based and explores the physical and poetic experience of space. She also works as an industry artist making props and sets.
Gallery 3 Shay Minster Slow Dance
Slow Dance examines the tragic comedy of the human condition. Appearing familiar and amusing at first, the project explores the suppression experienced when a personality is radically altered through the manipulation of their environment. A clown motif – drained of its usual high colour and its joyous free dance restricted – flails about in a futile attempt to fulfill its intended purpose. Stuck in endless repetition, Slow Dance confronts, in an absurd manner, the existential vacuum.
Shay Minster completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006. Since then she has been short-listed for various prizes and exhibited in artist-run spaces across Melbourne. Recent exhibitions include I Can Stand You at TCB art inc, We Love Each Other and Resocialisation – The Wentworth Gaol Project as part of The Murray Darling Palimpsest #7.
