Laila Marie Costa

  Laila Marie Costa

Artist statement

TempContemp (TC) is a curatorial project experimenting with the exhibition and promotion of contemporary jewellery.

Founded in Melbourne, Australia, by Laila Marie Costa and Anna Gray in 2018, the white cube has shapeshifted into a nomadic entity seeking out space and artists in its eternal exploration and interrogation of ‘jewellery’. 

With golden milk crates, digital platforms, and enthusiasm at the ready, TC has explored the notions of being contained whether it be by bricks and mortar, geopolitical borders, perceived liminal time/space continuums, diversity (& it’s lack of), beige gender expectations and future manifestations.

Bio

TempContemp (TC ) is a curatorial project experimenting with the exhibition and promotion of contemporary jewellery. Founded by Laila Marie Costa and Anna Gray, the white cube exhibition space occupied a corner of the Northcity 4 jewellery studio that was based in Brunswick, Melbourne. Assisted with funding by the Moreland City council and Northcity4, it officially opened in August 2018 with I Hate Contemporary Jewellery and closed its bricks and mortar existence in December 2019 with O, an exhibition of the volunteers’ art.

In these industrious seventeen months seven group exhibitions were produced with artists from around the world, including festive opening nights with infamous BBQ and live bands, as well as zine style catalogues and custom badges.

With the closing of Northcity4 in 2019, TC has become a ‘nomadic gallery’: for whom only a cache of golden milk crates, digital platforms and determination remain. Non-corporeal and free to drift on the curatorial winds of the arts ecosystem, the Mothership TC has landed at Bridget Kennedy Gallery, Sydney, and since becoming the third wheel on the HSDC entity as curatorial and exhibition presentation instigator, the inner-city streets of Melbourne for the biennial Radiant Pavilion festival. This project morphed into Contained/Uncontained in Auckland, Aotearoa/NZ, and now finds itself in Nelson for jewellery week.

Our exhibition themes are often provocative aiming to keep the discussion open, to see what jewellers are thinking and how they approach certain themes in their works. It’s independent, full of questions and searching for spaces and artists to collaborate and dialogue with in the exploration of ‘jewellery’. As Costa and Gray, step back and TC mutates with the visions of other team members, it is hoped innovative changes reflect the diversity and current neoteric issues.

TC has a small but diverse collection of jewellery sourced from the exhibitions produced.

Founders, curators and directors: Laila Marie Costa and Anna Gray. Long-time volunteers, collaborators and all-round champions: Claire Vaganiance and Aphra Cheesman.

TC acknowledges the other volunteers that made the project materialise. 

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