Unboxed / Lahtipakitud [2022]
curated group show11-13th November, 2022, Sydney Eesti Maja / Sydney Estonian House, Gadigal country
Between the 11-13th November at Sydney Estonian House, I curated a group show titled ‘Unboxed / Lahtipakitud’ held within the former spaces once occupied by the Estonian Archives in Australia. With 28 artists involved both in-person and remotely, taking place across three days this exhibition was my first foray into exhibition curation and offered a chance to revisit the space of the archive through the kaleidoscopic lens of archives. It was important to recognise the position archives hold as both sources of trauma and intergenerational pain and highlight the important role archivists and historians play in documenting and acting upon the injustices of the past (and present*) through their investigations and work.
Unboxed / Lahtipakitud presented alternatives, unpackings and interrogations into the archive through contemporary, historical and revisionist frameworks. ‘Unboxed’ considered the gallery as a relative to the archive - an asynchronous spaces of convergent timelines, stories and bodies. Within the former archive, memories and stories lingered within the peeling plaster and shadows of architecture, dust creating outlines of picture frames or shelving cabinets. As meeting places for disparate memoirs, fictions and artefacts, I consider the archive constantly adapting to the histories said to represent a people and their moment in time.
Photo courtesy of Kalindi Chapman [11 November 2022]
The artworks selected for Unboxed were chosen for their engagement with the topic of memory, time and history. Artworks questioned how the archive influences artists and equally how artists speak back to, wrestle with and create new histories through their practices - asking what does it look like to revisit the archive, to unbox and open up histories forgotten, and how do we care for this past to move into our future. As a concept this show equally acted as a literal opening up for our Estonian community in Sydney, to reach and embrace external cultural communities and allow others to engage both in dialogue and in participation. This process of opening up and inviting artists into our community hall and second home was a nervewracking process of vulnerability, defying expectations and justifying the show to my own Estonian community.
Throughout the interrogations into museum ownership, ethics, solastalgia/nostalgia, repatriation, decontextualisation, carbon offsets and sustainability in archives and of fostering care towards objects, it is clear it remains in our interest to keep unpacking the archive and challenging it. If you would like to read the artist booklet, you can read it on Issuu here: https://issuu.com/unboxed
maanǔn (found all over the place in plenty), from series nyatu' maanǔn mungut bigabu [2021], Tiyan Baker
digital autostereogram print on cotton rag“Part of a series of four, this photographic print features an images taken on Bidayǔh native lands in Sarawak on Baker’s ancestral farm lands. This image is an autostereogram, also known as a Magic Eye image, a nostalgic optical illusion technology that was very popular in the 1990s during the artist’s childhood. Embedded in this image is a forgotten or rarely used Bidayǔh words that is about wandering, collecting and foraging.
Serian Bidayǔh language has hundreds of terms for activities that speak to a daily rhythm of moving through the jungle and working intimately with plant life. In current semi-Industrialised Bidayǔh society, these words are almost never used and have been left behind. This series of images are incantations to evoke the old knowledge these words hold. They suggest that if we learn to see the natural world in a slightly different way, we can access another way of knowing and moving.” - Tiyan
Counting to ten and back [2020-22], Astrid Elouise Bell
acrylic on pine, multiple works of various dimensions ranging from 20 x 5 - 35 x 40cm “Counting to ten and back, is a collection of paintings that use diluted acrylic paint on untreated pinewood. These works are selected from Astrid’s archive of past works. Brought together from different projects and ideas to create a new arrangement or narrative. Selecting this new combination from the past, speaks to the generative potential of reflection, repetition, record, and placement. The works are made using a reliance on photography as a reference, though are blurred and murky. The images seem to be arriving or having just arrived on the board. The ritual practice of creating an image, labouring over its appearance and presence, is continued to consider how a finished work may sit or speak alongside other works in new spaces, made years or weeks before.” - Astrid
Untitled (Working Title) [2022], Lachie Thompson
backlit film, stereoscope, dimensions variable“Stereoscopy looks to recreate the experience of stereopsis, mimicking the view of both eyes, which are combined by the brain, giving the illusion of depth. This illusion of a deepened photographic perspective has a keen focus on the object, it singles things out, separating foreground from background, object from object. The stereoscope is also interesting for its novelty and history which places it as an artefact in its own right, but also as a tool for viewing. This work tries to play around with archival and photographic forms of viewing/seeing, presenting images of spare objects and frames yet to be removed from the soon to be repurposed archive space.” - Lachie
Out Of Print [1994/2017 - ongoing], nova Milne
collection of altered secondhand / ex-library books and periodicals of the work of artist collaboration CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE published between 1961 and 1994, magnesium block, foil, self-inking custom rubber stamp, archival book cloth, board, date attribution, dimensions variable“Out Of Print is an ongoing re-archiving action made in response to an anomaly in the career of art duo CHRISTO & JEANNE-CLAUDE. While trawling the library stacks during their art school days, nova Milne noticed inconsistencies in the attribution of Jeanne-Claude’s name in print. Circa 1994, artworks previously published and attributed to the singular artist CHRISTO started to be credited with the inclusion of his partner’s name JEANNE-CLAUDE, officially becoming thereafter ‘CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE’. Notably, the couple claim to have worked together since 1961.
For several years prior to CHRISTO & JEANNE-CLAUDE’s deaths, nova Milne has been casually collecting second hand and ex-library books published prior to 1994. Most now, are out of print. In a restorative gesture, nova Milne press a foil stamp on the front covers with ‘and Jeanne-Claude’, and rubber stamp an internal page, indicating the date of their intervention.” - nova Milne
Princess Die [2022], Kate McGuinness
magazine collage on board, 100 x 200cm“Someone told me I had a similar profile to Princess Di. Even though my nose is a bit bigger than hers, I have never received a compliment of such grandeur before. Helen from Satton Heights, QLD - or more commonly known by her eBay username @graftonbookworm, has collected every magazine she could find with Diana on the cover. Since Di’s first appearance as Prince Charles’ young girlfriend in the 1980’s and often buying five copies of the same magazine, Helen was such a loyal customer at her local newsagent that she was even given those issues that didn’t sell. The pen pal relationship we developed via eBay inspired Princess Die audition tape and collage (2022) and is an ode to Helen’s lifelong obsession with archiving Diana, the ‘People’s Princess’” - Kate
Love Letters Archive [2021-ongoing], Love Club (Joshua Di Mattina-Beven, Ava Lacoon-Robinson & Kieran Hugues Butler)
participatory installation, desk, chair, floor cushion, pens, pencils, paint markers, sharpie pens, paper, and stickers, 120 x 75 x 73cm“Audience members were invited to write a love letter to themselves or someone they love. A letter could be written formally sitting at the desk with writing tools and paper provided. Or, Audience members were invited to graffiti a love message directly onto the underside of the desk. Audience members have the choice to lie on the floor or the desk can be repositioned to cater for individual access needs.
The Love Letters Archive is an online open submission archive for Queer Love Letters . Letters may be addressed to our past selves, future selves, or to someone who needs to hear our love. Each letter is a personal reflection on our own journeys of understanding the beautiful, ever-evolving nature of queerness. As queer people look for comfort, we can rarely access stories from queer people that document their journies of queerness, of first crushes, of queer friendship. Queer People are often left out of archives and are forced to piece together stories of earlier queer communities using the words of ignorant sources, not the words of our own community. Hence, we have created a website community board to archive these letters - an archive for queer people, by queer people.” - Love Club
My grandmother was a seamstress (I-III) [2018], Judith Martinez Estrada
digital photomontage of ID photographs dating back to Spanish Civil War, merged with sewing samples printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 81 x 61cm, created at Alfred University, Expanded Media Department, New York, USA“My grandmother was a seamstress is a digitally created triptych featuring two identity portraits and a vernacular wedding photograph, overlayed with embroidery examples created by my grandmother Emilia. These samples have been neatly presented in a handmade folder, measuring only 15cm x 10cm. Each page features delicate embroidery techniques, from the purely decorative, to buttonholes and utilitarian mending methods. The small book is in itself an object of understated beauty, where each piece of thin ecru coloured cotton fabric has been glued to uncoated black cardboard pages and protected by tissue paper. Random stains of dried glue are present throughout the book, adding age marks and detracting from the otherwise immaculate stitching.
By bringing the stitching to the foreground of the images in ‘My grandmother was a Seamstress’, in addition to concealing the eyes of both grandparents in the photographs, the focus is shifted from the portrait, that of the human gaze, to the sewing, that of the making and the feminine. When increased in size, the fabric, embroidery and detailed patterns appear to be a tactile pattern in code — a message — one only Emilia, as the author of these pieces, could have deciphered, and one that we, as viewers can guess at.” - Judith
Unpicked [1968-71], Mai Buchert
macramé hanging and calico Millmaster Feeds Calf-Pab bag, 26 x 30cm & 45 x 75cm“Millmaster Feeds Pty Ltd commenced operation in Enfield in 1952, producing stock feed, including pellets and food supplements for farm animals. Calf-Pab was a milk replacement product for poddy calves. Calf-Pab was packed inside a clearly identifiable calico bag, stitched together with heavy duty white or cream coloured thread. This method of packing farm produce was distinct for the time.
This is where this story begins. Our family owned a poultry farm in Thirlmere as well as several head of cattle. The early days of farm life were difficult for a ‘New Australian’ i.e. an Estonian farmer and their family. Money was tight and every resource was to be saved and repurposed. Poddy calves were supported on products such as Calf-Pab. Every bit of packaging was repurposed and recycled; the bag, the thread and the inner waterproof plastic liners were saved.
The calico bag was carefully unpicked, the fabric and thread were washed. The calico bag was then used to make pillow and cushion liners, wash bags and library bags. The thread was used for heavy duty sewing, crotchet or macrame style belts or handicrafts. My early childhood and primary memories in the 1960’s remind me of me sneaking into the stock feed bag shed to locate an open Calf-Pab bag so as to eat the tasty milk powder. My after-school activity was helping my isa (dad) mix the powder and feed the poddy calves. My ema (mum) ensured that I was toughened up by plucking chooks and the occasional rooster. The best feathers were saved, washed and hung to dry on the clothes line and inside a Calf-Pab calico bag. A few weeks later I had another after school activity, where many hours were spent separating the feathery bits from the quill and shaft which were then placed inside the recycled pillow liner. The end result was a relaxed deep sleep, knowing that I made it myself.” - Mai
Donation to the Archives [2019], Aisyah Aaqil Sumito
three-channel film, 45:43mins“Donation to the Archives was a performative response to gaps in the James Sykes Battye Archive of Western Australian History, housed by the State Library of Western Australia. At the centre of a cluster of cultural institutions — Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Art Gallery of WA, the Museum of WA (Boola Bardip, as it was being reconstructed) and the State Library of WA — Sumito publicly dresses themself in culturally masc-coded garments. Documented from three angles, and combined into a single channel video, Sumito plays with misnomers of authenticity, and attempts to address these institutions through a return of the colonial gaze. Donation to the Archives was originally intended as an eventual supplementation to the archive, but it was never actually donated. Filmed by Gabby Loo, Gok Lim Finch and Annika Moses, and edited by Shannon Marlborough.” - Aisyah
Aras Filem (Cikapundung Kolot - Morning Series) [2020], Aulia Yeru
Fuji Professional Photo Paper mounted on aluminium dibond, wood, 42 x 29.7cm“Across this series, a film soup was created that documented and captured the change in water quality of the Cikapundung river at noon, which divides the city of Bandung in West Java. Using 35mm film stills taken underwater and developed from the polluted water samples, this work stems from my search for a medium which can stage and present and stage water as a living being. My recent efforts have been centred to search for a platform or “translation machine” for the water to speak to us in the form of visual languages.” - Aulia
Aunty Mo Si & Aunty’s Painting [19??-2022], Nolan Ho Wung Murphy & Mo Si Chan
photographic portrait, 53 x 73cm & ink on paper, 52 x 52cm“My Aunty Mo Si quietly passed away in 2018, leaving behind a collection of paintings that have never been exhibited or shown publicly. Here, I sit with her works, so we may meet for the first time as artists. The adjacent painting by my Aunty features a mountain side, trees and a lone individual walking across a bridge. The right hand corner of the painting features calligraphy written by my grandfather.” - Nolan
Bahala na [2020-22], Nicole Cadelina
six slip-casted Bibles, coverless Bible, printed vignettes, dimensions varible“Bahala na presents a series of slip-casted bibles stacked onto its original, yet cover-less form. The title derives from a phrase commonly used among Filipinos, meaning leave it up to god or whatever happens, happens; a fatalistic saying to cope with the uncertainty of the future. The phrase is re-contextualised to reflect and meditate on the artist’s disposition with the slip-casting process. Each crumbling copy of the Bible serves to interrogate religion, its ties to colonial histories, and its lack of relevance in the present day.
Complementing the body of work is a text-based piece in dialogue with the slip-casts. The vignette includes a still taken from Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest, a film that examines a priest’s devotion to faith after his encounters with an unwelcoming community of villagers. The writing presents thematic parallels to the film and laments on the artist’s complicated position with spirituality and secularism.” - Nicole
Photo courtesy of Liam Black [11 November 2022]
Mother Tongue [2022], Geirthana
graphite on sandpaper on salvaged wooden frame, audio, 54 x 64cm“Thinking through ideas on labour, love, mother tongue, lineage, culture, attempted connection, loss of generational knowledge and silent frustrations. The burning of Jaffna Public Library on May 31st 1981 is a reminder of the loss of Tamil culture. In conversation with her mother, a newspaper article is translated through generations; and refigured as a palimpsest of an unfamiliar language. This artwork is an attempt to consider how memory carries cultural legacies forward when the physical no longer remains, nor the vocabulary to understand.” - Geirthana
Bull Horn Cake Research Centre [2020-ongoing], Phuong Ngo
bull horn cake, archive box, varnish, tissue paper, cardboard tag, ink, dimensions variable“The Bull Horn Cake Research Centre (BHCRS) is an archive documenting the Vietnamese diaspora through its colonial past. The project entails the collecting, preserving, tagging, and cataloguing of Bull Horn Cakes (croissants) from Vietnamese bakeries. The research centre is a portrait of the diaspora, of the labour and businesses of the Vietnamese community and of how the colonial baggage that we carry with us can be co-opted, transformed and made our own.” - Phuong
A World Vision [2022], Phuong Ngo
single-channel film, 4:15 minutes“A World Vision recontextualises Gabriel Veyre’s 1889 film ‘Enfants annamites ramassant des sapèques devant la pagode des dames’ to comment on contemporary issues of imperialism, charity and foreign aid. Borrowing its name from evangelical Christian aid organisation World Vision International, the work aims to challenge acts of charity and aid, suggesting their deep connection to colonial and imperial practices. A slowed down version of Veyre's film is paired with the song ‘Feed the Birds’ from Disney’s 1964 classic ‘Mary Poppins’. The work relies on cinematic nostalgia to draw the viewer into an uncomfortable, yet familiar place.
In pairing these two elements A World Vision seeks to alter the reading of Veyre’s film, making what was already an uncomfortable visual even more uncomfortable by layering it with the orchestral drama of Feed the Birds. The added nuance offered by slowing down the footage to half the speed, further alters the original film holding the viewers gaze on the actions of these women, while returning some agency to the unnamed ‘natives’, who are now identifiable as people and not pigeons scurrying for crumbs.
The work draws attention to the obvious racial nature of colonialism and weds it to contemporary philanthropic practices that are rooted in Christianity and capitalism. The collaging of sound and image is designed to create an unsettling contrast that relies on the viewer's nostalgia. By creating an uncomfortable experience for the audience, the work asks them to question their own history of charity and charitable habits, recontextualising the imperialist nature of non-for-profits who operate in the Global South.” - Phuong
Petlja (Loop) [2022], Lora Adžić
heat-pressed images on calico suspended by ceramic chains, 110 x 155cm“Petlja (Loop) is part of a site specific investigation into a cemetery in Sarajevo, Bosnia called Rimokatoličko Groblje. Stupska Petlja (Stup Interchange), which is the largest highway interchange in the Balkans, overpasses the cemetery in which my maternal grandparents and great grandparents are buried. The dichotomy of this location is most evident when visiting the site in person. The highways that tower above are signifiers of speed, modern life and a means for arriving at one of many possible destinations. These structures swallow the graveyard which sits below; a site of slow procession, meditative farewell, ritual and the very final destination of a person. The physical disruption of this site parallels countless historical events of cultural destruction, whether that be intentional or inadvertent. Both forms of destruction occurred in the Yugoslavian Wars in the 1990’s, particularly in Sarajevo, which due to the multiculturalism of the city, suffered the greatest impact.
Photo courtesy of Liam Black [11 November 2022]
I first visited this site in 2013 with my sister when we went to see our dida (grandpa). He took us to the cemetery to visit the graves of our baka (grandma) and great-grandparents. We helped him clean the graves, tidy the fake flowers that had wobbled over and pull out any weeds. I repeated this ritual with Dida when I went to visit him in 2019. It felt familiar and calming. He passed away in 2021, so when I was able to visit Sarajevo again this year, I enacted the ritual without him. Despite the sense of disruption and fluctuation felt at the site, the act of cleaning the graves has been, and will continue to be, a consistent and repeated ritual.” - Lora
Untitled (Plate & Jars) [2022], Billie Posters
agateware ceramic plate and cups with surface decoration, dimensions variable“Interested in reduced pictorial languages and aggregate collages of assorted court sketches, Ottomar Starke and cartoons illustrated by their great-grandfather, these objects speak on their own accord as ahistorical objects, decontextualized without title or intended interpretation. Posters’ ceramic work is a crossover between printmaking and pottery, exploiting the potentiality for reproduction through the two mediums. Their work is interested in the bond between craft skill and the occult. Inspired by the proletariat culture and printmaking of the former Soviet Union, Posters’ intention is ”to rework images of the past, not with pedantic veneration of the old but with the desire to drink deeply the reality of the present” - Lachlan
Magical Lexicographical: Words on Art, Motion and the Internet & Personal Pieces [2022], Rainer Ciar
A5 zine accompanied by a collection of objects (figurines, orbs, air-dry clay tiles, stin, ceramic, beards)“Magical Lexicographical: Words on Art, Motion and the Internet is a glossary for my artmaking. Exploring the nature of the old internet, my interests in it, and the reasons I make artwork, I wanted to dwell in the mess of nostalgia as I looked towards future art practices for myself. How can I pick up the pieces of fantasy and forbidden knowledge found in digital archives and memories?
How can I turn inwards and make my inner worlds tangible for others to see?
Where does my body lie? As I think about my solitary forms of making and the points of connections between other people and places, I trace digital echoes and sit with the noisy machines that facilitate these conjunctions. I think about motion and making, and about what it means to me and the people who encounter it.
Photo courtesy of Liam Black [11 November 2022]
This piece was originally written for Framework Collection #35 | Mythic and performed at Fatal Crush, the essay is also being read at Unboxed/Lahtipakitud opening night in the Reading Nook library. Accompanying the zine is a suite of objects ranging from handmade artworks to found objects collected over the years. As part of a reflection on my own practice and the slow accumulation of things to draw knowledge and power on, I present an altar encompassing objects that mean a myriad of things to me.” - Rainer
-- [2022], Agus Wijaya
written text & installation work of pre-existing sculptural elements, dimensions variable“Where at I and I;
Yet similar parallel more;
Never between and of things now;
Events back a construct of;
In and part entangled to;
Their ‘both’ along conquer;
And divide all;
- certain lines-”
Laupäeva öhtud üksi koeraga kodus [1970-83] & Eesti Padjad [1969-79], Mai Lehtsalu
framed sketch book of Estonian patterns sourced from Triinu magazine (Canada) and folk costumes, 52 x 41cm & embroidered pillows made from donated yarn, dimensions variable“Salme - my grandmother, had a brilliant sense of colour, her home had these glorious & colourful traditional Estonian pillows while our home had barely any. When my parents bought a the trendy Parker 70's mission brown modular lounge with fluffy white flokati rugs I was inspired to make pillows for our home. Salme had a lot of spare material & wool while I had my own Estonian pattern book.
From early 1970's for many years I would be home alone with a guard dog, a big German Shepherd named Ruffy while my parents and siblings were out partying.
Saturday nights I would work on making pillows, the best part being the designing process, thinking about which background material worked best, matching the wool scraps and deciding on the patterns. I had no money to purchase to materials so I had to use whatever was available. Once I had a part time job I could buy my own materials. I still have my pattern book though its very difficult to source cheap wool supplies. Over time I starting making cross stitch pillows which took a long time to make.
In later years Salme & I would critique each others work, who could pick the mistakes in the cross-stitch. The funniest thing was Salme use to hide her spare notes in her wool suply and often warned us not to throw any wool out without first checking for money.” - Mai
neither here nor there [2022-22], Hannah Rose Carroll Harris
framed collage on paper and Vietri sul Mare terrazzo tile, dimensions variable“neither here nor there (2020/22) is a two part work responding to a terrazzo stone piece which washed ashore a beach in Vietri Sul Mare during a moment where I was stranded, home sick and yet gifted/burdened with an abundance of time. This palimpsest of paper and stone draws on geology as a form of record - mapping history and the passing of time physically, as well as our human emotional understanding of vast time geological scales. We are neither here nor there. And yet we will mark our time here in stone.” - Hannah
Candlestick from series Fruit of the Room [2022], David Suyasa
UV digital print on opal acrylic in handmade lightbox & photograph, 62.5 × 44 x 15cm“Fruit of the Room considers the potential of photography and the model as tools to reconstruct the past. Emerging from a desire to understand the life of my siblings before I was born with the family photo album as the source. Quickly recognising the impossibility of extracting any objective understanding of the past, I shifted my investigation from the what-has-been to the what-could-have-been.
Photo courtesy of Liam Black [11 November 2022]
The work focuses on domestic interior scenes found in the photographs which have been reconstructed via 3D modelling. The resulting abstractions of source material are transmuted into projections of an imagined past. Departing from photographic conceptions that promise a direct relationship between the image and the time it represents, the series instead privileges the imaginative and affective responses to images found in the family archive.”
Interrogating Archives: Where is The Bubble Tea? [2022], Dylan Goh
written text in dialogue with Phuong Ngo’s “Bull Horn Cake Research Centre”“Originally presented at the 21st September at AGNSW for "SPARK: Museums. Ideas. Connections" alongside peers in the cultural sector, my speech "Curating A Museum Without A Collection" had championed the case for deaccessioning physical collections to reduce impacts on climate change. I had proposed reconfiguring the role of museums into spaces amplifying the voices of independent curators within grassroot communities.
Expanding further on this presentation, I write in relation to bubble tea & Phuong Ngo's ongoing Bull Horn Cake Research Centre collection - expanding my suggestion to consider how diasporic communities can decouple themselves from seeking 'legitimacy' in institutional archives through the lens of community-led programs.” - Dylan
War Memorial (VIC) [2014], Clare Milledge
oil on tempered glass, acrylic paint on old hessian rested upon suitcases made by Estonian displaced persons in WWII, rags, 94 x 74 cm“Hinterglasmalerei (behind glass paintings) based on geographically specific ecological surveys of extinct flora & fauna species. Part of a wider project advocating listening to forests as living entities, these works become a means to engage with ecology. Beginning with the methodology of fieldwork, her artworks develop through the translation of information and material gathered on ecological site visits. Milledge employs the figure of the artist-shaman in her work as a transformative metaphor, imbuing installations, otherwise based upon scientific data, with a mystical quality.
The child of two ecologists - who are frequent collaborators in her research - Milledge is interested in the fieldwork observations that are often excluded from published research - the conversations and marginal notes that enrich the story in ways that pure data cannot'.” - Clare
Dust [2021] & Fairy Floss [2016], Blake Lawrence
single-channel HD video, 60:00 minutes, made in collaboration with Garden Reflexxx & archival pigment print on Ilford Prestige Gloss, 59 × 84cm, accompanied by an installation of dryer lint & sauna rocks sourced from Ken's at Kensington resting atop wartime suitcases donated by the Estonian Archives in Australia, dimensions variable“Dust is an hour long film following the artist and collaborators Garden Reflexxx as they explore the ruins of an abandoned gay bathhouse in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The anecdotal, ephemeral and conversational hint at connections and intimacies that transcend boundaries of time, place and matter. A glory hole as an aperture. Fairy Floss is an accompanying archive of intimacy, an archive of bodies - Fairy Floss is a photograph of the lint tray of the industrial dryer at a bathhouse for gay men.” - Blake
A Scrap [n.d.], Lachlan Bell
original wallpaper fragment, glass, wood, 20 x 15cm“A scrap of original wallpaper salvaged from the former dining hall-turned archive in Estonian House. Haphazardly collected in between renovations during 2021-22 for the relocation of the Estonian Archives in Australia downstairs, this fragment lingers on as a curious specimen suspended in glass.” - Lachlan
A Window That We Assemble [1955-ongoing], Lachlan Bell (for the Estonian Society of Sydney)
various attributed & anonymous artworks held behind a locked glass door, 428 x 346cm“An ongoing work in progress of documentation and investigation. The majority of this collection was previously hidden, nestled between walls. out of sight, forgotten and unattributed. This space is not made accessible due to the fragility of the works and the images must be turned away from the light for UV protection.”
A Moment For Rest [2022-]
communal library comprising of a collection of texts and writings on bamboo shelf, embroidered cushions by Mai Lehtsalu (1969-1979), handwoven rug by Marta Kond (c. 1970), dimensions variable
A communal library allowing readers to enter and read the texts sourced by multiple individuals. A Moment of Rest considers the archive as a rest stop, a place of contemplation in which to orientate and place oneself within a moment in time. Presenting a collection of books, zines and sketchbooks contributed by participating artists and from private libraries, expanding on themes of memory, research and archiving.
