Radiant Pavilion Contemporary Jewellery and Object Biennial took place last week here in Melbourne. Due to yet another lockdown, most projects were online, while a handful of exhibitions could be viewed in person in gallery windows or interacted with around the streets of Melbourne. It was wonderful to see what everyone has been working on. There we’re many fresh perspectives, fascinating projects, and terrific artworks but I also found myself longing for in person catchups and seeing work in a physical space.
I found myself gravitating towards the projects that I was able to interact with offline (‘Finding Found – Tick Tock’ by Becky Bliss and Claire McArdle’s ‘Walk’ for example) and I was lucky to be able to walk to a couple of window displays within my 5km Radius (State of Flux at The Boroughs Store and Jin ah Jo’s ‘Craft habit 100/100 Volume Two: My LaLa Land).
State of Flux exhibition in the window of The Boroughs Store in Brunswick, with Becky Bliss ‘Finding Found – Tick Tock’ brooches.
There were also many artists who found really engaging ways of showing their projects online, such as Inari Kiuru’s project presented through a daily blog post for each day of the Radiant Pavilion week. I also felt very interested in and inspired by the ‘Deep Material Energy’ interview circle, a discussion between 8 artists, 4 from Aotearoa and 4 from Naarm.
I was involved in 3 projects for Rad Pav 2021. The first, a collaboration between Handshake, Dialogue Collective (UK) and Temp Contemp Gallery (AU) titled ‘Containment / Uncontained’. This project was the result of lots of planning and many conversations as we investigated our shared and sometimes contrasting experiences moving between containment and freedom over the past 18 months. For much of the duration of the project, members of the Dialogue Collective were in lockdown while here in Melbourne and New Zealand we enjoyed somewhat more freedom.
Posters up around town!
The result: a poster exhibition and zine that can be view here . I was very lucky and excited to be able to see our posters up around town. The scale of the posters and our strong imagery was very effective. We all interpreted the central ideas of containment / uncontained in such varied and interesting ways.
My poster
My zine page
My piece responds to the sense of containment felt during periods of lockdown; feeling contained within my home, radius, bubble and through social distancing. I considered how Jewellery can often act as a connector; between the wearer and another person, between people and place or wearer and the outside world. I made a two person necklace which connects the wearers while also separating them by 1.5 meters – the recommended social distancing space. The piece is made from electrical wire formed in a fence like structure. I consider how vital virtual communication is to keep in touch with friends and family (and to collaborate from other sides of the world like HSDC TC!) during these times. On the other hand, I also keenly sense the lack of physical, in-person interactions with these people ; a fence (or screen) between us.