Treatment III - Public Art Project (Wyndham) | Funder: Wyndham City Council
History
Location
The Annex Gallery
Start date
2023-11-08
End date
2023-11-19
Notes
Nuggets was an exhibition celebrating the third iteration of the long running public art project, Treatment which in 2023, ran from Spotswood, through Brooklyn, down to the Western Treatment Plant. Bringing objects and moments to life inside the gallery allows all those involved, alongside new audience, to re-imagine the social, material and technical connections this project has brought to the diverse communities of Melbourne’s West.
At the same time Nuggets afforded the curators an opportunity to pay tribute to key stakeholders Wyndham City and Melbourne Water and to celebrate the efforts of the production crew, volunteers and friends of the project. The curators and artists have delved into their back pockets, to find ephemera of various kinds (objects, films, photos etc..) in an attempt to do an almost impossible thing, capture the elemental experience of the project – its time, its people and its place.
Nuggets was presented by Curators David Cross and Cameron Bishop with artists Eugenia Lim, Linda Tegg, Rogue Academy, Robert Andrew, Edwina Stevens, Zanny Begg, Fiona Hilary, Peter Burke, Mick Douglas, Georgina Lewis, Anindita Banerjee, Connor Ovenden-Shaw, The Improvisors, Damien Laing, James Nguyen and Clive Gono.
In partnership with Public Art Commission and Deakin University with support from Melbourne Water, Scienceworks, Hobson Bay City Council and West Gate Neighbourhood Fund.
Research statement
Background
A unique curatorial and design approach to documenting artworks in the public sphere framed this exhibition at The Annex Space, Wyndham Art Gallery. It captured the third iteration of the Treatment Public Art and asked: in re-framing 14 public art projects from a scattered site exhibition how might new critical dialogues be created through their documentation and re-presentation in an art gallery? As the exhibition sought to cohere a large scale scattered site public art project – that unfolded over one month - through video, photography and text the curators sought to develop their own practice inside the spatial and bureaucratic constraints of the gallery.
Contribution
The curators took a 'transversal approach' to site (Nato thomson, 2015), which belies the neutral space of the gallery where the documentation of the works challenges the experiential qualities of them. The curators thus re-presented, re-framed and re-contextualised videos, photographs and texts that were generated for the public art event as one novel and immersive work - where new meanings and interpretations were drawn in the tensions they created between the documented works. This novel approach was a dynamic reconfiguration of spatial and temporal contexts, transforming passive documentation and artefacts into an active discourse with a new audience.
Significance
16 artists and collaborative groups were curated into the show. Artists and film-makers with international reputations and multiple awards for their works exhibited in this show They included: Eugenia Lim, Sidney Myer Creative Fellow; Yawuru artist Robert Andrew; ACMI Commission Award Winner, Zanny Begg; and the 2023 ACCA commission award winner, James Nuygen. The event built on the long standing partnerships the curators had built with Wyndham City, Melbourne Water, Hobsons Bay City, Scienceworks and others. The event was featured on radio including as a long feature story on Radio National's Art Show.