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| abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-art-show |
Presence of Mind examines the intersections of mindfulness, Buddhism and the creative processes of visual artists in Australia and Singapore. For artists in this exhibition, mindfulness is foundational to their creative processes and can take many forms, from embodied processes to playful humour, as well as technological and traditional motifs. In bringing together diasporic artists from Australia and Singapore, Presence of Mind examines intersections of Buddhist lived experience and cultural differences, highlighting the rich perspectives that spirituality can bring to art.
Artists: Cindy Yuen-zhe Chen, Jeremy Chu, Lada Dedic, Kath Fries, Lindy Lee, Jason Lim, Aryadharma Aaron Matheson, Kristina Mah, Alecia Neo, Nell, Shirley Soh, Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Lachlan Warner.
Curators: Dr Kath Fries and Rachael Kiang
Presence of Mind
Opening 6pm Friday 10 December RSVP
11 December 2021 - 26 February 2022
Gallery Lane Cove + Creative Studios
164 Longueville Road Lane Cove NSW 2066
Open: 10:00am - 4:30pm Monday to Saturday*
*Gallery Lane Cove + Creative Studios will be closed over the Christmas period from 25 December 2021 - 3 January 2022.
** Friday 24 December and Saturday 26 February the gallery will close at 2.30pm
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, the NSW Government through Create NSW and its annual organisation grant, and partnership support from 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.
"… Over the past few years, the otherwise overlooked queendom of fungi has materialised in the collective popular imagination as both multifarious and bewildering. We are coming to understand that in this time of ecological crisis our futures are deeply and immutably entangled with the fate of fungal worlds as symbionts, decomposers and co-creators. In Fries’ work she draws us into noticing these complex entanglements, by asking us to slow down and pay attention to different kinds of existences and temporalities … Contemplating how multispecies entanglements can co-exist and navigate these difficult times collectively, is both urgent and transformative. Allow yourself to dissolve into this connectedness, to dissolve into the continuum. …"
- Alia Parker, extract from Embrace exhibition essay
For many of us in lockdown, walking has become the highlight of the day and one of the few excuses to go outside. Going for a walk has become a privilege and our appreciation of this simple freedom has grown accordingly. Walking is an act of touching the Earth, a series of rhythmic repeated acts connecting your body to the ground. Each breath brings the world, and the present moment, into your body, and then it releases the body back into the world in a continuous cycle of exchange. To walk mindfully rather than rushing from one place to another, is to walk meditatively, opening your awareness to the metabolism that exists between yourself and your surroundings.
Cementa Spirit of '21
15 - 16 October 2021
Live stream - cementa.com.au
RAW Clay LAB Open Weekend
Fungi x Botanica
24 APRIL – 9 MAY 2021 |
| Fungi x Botanica exhibition invitation |
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Artist Credits: Rainbow Bracket by Rachel Klyve, Ageing Purple Cabbage by Elaine Musgrave, Gymnopilus junonius by Beverly Allen |
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| Artist Credits: Medicinal fungi by Anna Voytsekhovich, Stink Horn by Glenn Smith |
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| Artist Credits: Forest Fungi by Elaine Musgrave, Saffron Milk Cap by Anna Voytsekhovich, Titan Arum by Leonie Norton |
Isobel Parker Philip expands mushroom mycelium metaphors in relation to Covid experiences of connection and disconnection, in her essay "Foraging along forking paths". https://togetherinart.org/foraging-along-forking-paths/
Fungi are 'inherently collaborative creatures' and 'world builders' ... They transform the environments in which they live.
It’s a rather generous form of habitation ... The thread-like filaments of a fungus’ root system, the hyphae, spread through the soil. It’s an infrastructure that carries both nutrients and information, sometimes helping an ecosystem respond to threats and filter out pollutants. This infrastructure behaves like an underground city.
Or the internet.
There’s something here.
Something in the relationship between the fungal networks that propagate and transform the natural world and the virtual networks we’re tethered to.
... We often think of mushrooms as independent organisms. They are found intact, as distinct ‘fruits’, when foraged. But beneath the surface, they’re enmeshed; their mycelium (their roots) spread far and wide. They spawn other specimens and create a dense web. Sitting all alone in front of our screens, aren’t we also individual organisms bound by invisible filaments? Aren’t we entangled in our own web? Metaphorical mushrooms, mainlining memes.
... This feels fungal. It’s a form of world-building. I spread myself across otherwise insurmountable physical distances by interacting with others. This is a collaborative ecology. The networked encounters we experience on the internet can be a form of sustenance. They are transformative; they sustain and shape us. We’re back to foraging, figuratively. Remember, it is the interaction between fungi and its ecosystem that determines what grows there (and how). The fungi changes the landscape and determines what survives there. So does the internet.
To think of social media as sustenance is not to say it’s good for you. Remember, not all mushrooms are okay to eat. We have to carefully identify the species – calculate the risk – before we consume it. Perhaps we should pay heed and follow the same due diligence when foraging for facts on the web?
Extracts from Isobel Parker Philip, "Foraging along forking paths", https://togetherinart.org/foraging-along-forking-paths/
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