Lead Organisation: Contemporary Art Spaces Mandurah (CASM)
Dates: 15 Feb – 17 March 2019
OPENING EVENT: 2PM, SUNDAY 17TH MARCH, 2019
Venue: Contemporary Art Spaces Mandurah (CASM)
Contact: Carolyn Marks

Carolyn.Marks@mandurah.wa.gov.au

 

 


“The Alternative Archive (Peel) is potentially the most significant exhibition presented by and to our community since CASM’s inception in 2011. The opportunity for local artists to investigate themes close to home is always appealing, however it is the additional outcomes of developing stronger social and industry networks that excites many regional artists often more in tune with working in an insular manner.” (Carolyn Marks, Local Curator)

Click here to view the Exhibition Catalogue (The Alternative Archive – Peel)

Scroll down for links to each artist and artwork in the exhibition.

Alana Grant – ‘Belonging Through Play’

Carmel Sayer – ‘The Silent Archive’

Deidre Robb – ‘I Op Shop Therefore I Am’

Mary Ann Rath – ‘Mandurah Bush Hermit’

James Wood – ‘Plane Spotting: Traverse 30 Days’

Jo Wood – ‘This brief instant…..”

Helen Coleman – ‘Materia Loci’

Lyn Nixon – ‘Connection’ and ‘Fragments’

Philomena Hali – ‘Canned Herrings – a Baker’s Dozen’

Juliann Ryan and Katrina Barber – ‘Oh Sadness’

Exhibition Opening: Sunday 17th February, 2pm

Featured guest talks by The Honorable David Templman (MLA member for Mandurah and Minister for the Arts) and Lead Curator, Anna Louise Richardson

Artist’s Talk: Sunday March 3rd, 2pm

Cultural Tour: Sunday 24th February, 11am – 2.30pm (Featured Artist talk with Katrina Barber and Julianne Ryan, Panel discussion with WA Museum curators, walk with Museum Officer Nicholas Reynolds and Elder George Walley, exhibition viewing at CASM)

Lead Curator: Anna Louise Richardson

Local Curator: Carolyn Marks

Exhibition Photographer: Lyn Nixon (mentored by Eva Fernandez)

Artists: 12 Peel artists participated in this exhibition:  Carmel Sayer, Helen Coleman, Stella Onderwater, James Walker, Philomena Hali, Deidre Robb, Alana Grant, Maryann Rath, Jo Wood, Katrina Barber with Julianne Ryan and Lyn Nixon working in a range of medium including painting, sculpture, textiles, printmaking, installation and sound.

Thematic focus: Thematically artists chose inroads to the exhibition theme through three concepts derived from Anna Richardson’s original discourse (existing archives, archives resulting from community stories and memory and created archives) and related them to historical, contemporary or future attributes of the Peel region.

The historical fish cannery called the Peel Inlet Preserving works operating in Mandurah from the 1860’s to the 1940’s and the plight of the Japanese families that were ferreted to and fro between countries each season has captured the imagination of textile artist Philomena Hali .  Through installation Stella Onderwater will explore the compounded failure of individual, community and local government surrounding the unfulfilled life and bequeathed land of Thomas Peel junior and Helen Coleman will continue her archival exploration of endemic plants in the Peel specifically aligned with uses derived by the first peoples of the land. Other broader topics  explored in the exhibition will include the daily transect of air space above the Peel by James Walker and the notion that the most enduring archive we have is that of the land, investigated by Jo Wood.

Project Partners: CASM collaborated with the Mandurah Community Museum which allows artists to gain insight from the long standing historian Nicholas Reynolds as well as delve into the depth of oral, pictorial, object and written archives. Artists are assisting each other through network expansion and critical discourse, having recently met and discussed their projects together and developed a closed facebook page. Time devoted to concept development, substantiating research and the act of creation will be significant to each artist and it will be of great value to be able to receive addition funds for this project specified to building artist fees.