It’s hard to believe it has been a whole year since the Relative Constructions crew ran our first crowd funding campaign for our Poetic Lens exhibition. What a year it has been!
Relative Constructions team selfie, from left: Ellis Hutch, Blaide Lallemand, Caroline Huf and Genevieve Swifte
The funds from our Indiegogo campaign enabled us to produce a printed publication to accompany the exhibition the Poetic Lens, held at M16 Artspace in May. The exhibition itself was well received and was an excellent first project for our collective. As the year has progressed we’ve been working on the next phase and have received confirmation that the Poetic Lens will be shown at Tamworth Regional Gallery in 2015, and we’re working on expanding the tour further.
We are thrilled to have received an award for the exhibition from The Canberra Critics Circle – commenting that our exhibition and publication presented ‘an innovative alternative perspective on lens-based media as an emotive, embodied poetic form. Receiving acknowledgement from our community, and especially the people who make an effort to get out and see the huge variety of work on show in Canberra gave us all a real boost at the end of an incredibly busy year.
While the collective has been humming along dreaming up future projects, we have all been busy in our individual practices. Here’s an overview of this year’s highlights:
Caroline Huf, Stone piece 2014 still from animation. This image comes from Girona Cathedral, Spain. The courtyard paved with many different stone carvings all worn and chipped, have been walked over for hundreds of years.
Caroline Huf exhibited an installation of her work at M16 Artspace early in the year, and a video in the I heart video art exhibition at ANCA Gallery in the middle of the year. She also took a very exciting research trip to Europe visiting Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Vilnius in Lithuania and then back to Paris for the Festival of Experimental and different cinema. Caroline said “I was so lucky to have this trip, and see some amazing exhibitions, the highlight was an Exhibition of Ana Mendieta's work called Traces, that I saw in Prague, and the Turner prize at the Tate Modern in London, so many wonderful exhibitions.’
Now back home in Canberra she is focussing on writing her PhD exegesis and will be spending Christmas at her desk!
Blaide Lallemand and Michael Norris, Where do we stand? 2014 sound installation exhibited in Embracing innovations 4 at Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre
Blaide Lallemand has continued to work on a fascinating project called Where do we stand? with Michael Norris which was exhibited at Embracing Innovations 4 at Craft ACT. They received an Arts ACT grant in 2013 to research and develop this project, which involves creating an immersive interactive sound installation. Blaide’s had a really busy year exhibiting, her work was shown in I heart video art at ANCA gallery; her Walkin’ the streets: New York was shown at Kaori Gallery in Civic and she exhibited in Morphos: Sustainable Empires, international architecture, video-art, photography, installation and performing art festival in Venice, Italy. Blaide also squeezed in some travel in September, as she was invited to exhibit with the American Australian Association in New York.
Ellis Hutch and Lucy Quinn, Team training exercise 2014 performance for Zonk Vision, Pocket Holiday at Canberra Contemporary Art Space
Ellis Hutch has had a full year juggling teaching work with her own study and working on a large installation project to be launched next year. Ellis also exhibited in I heart video art at ANCA, gave a conference paper about her work at Queensland Festival of Photography in Brisbane and performed Team training exercise with Lucy Quinn as part of the Zonk Vision’s Pocket Holiday event at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Ellis was thrilled to receive an Arts ACT Grant that will enable her to travel to Finland in 2015 to undertake a second residency at the Arteles Creative Centre.
Genevieve Swifte, Breast 2014, pigment print from black and white negative on hahnemuhle photo rag
In September, Genevieve Swifte held a solo show of her photography Trespass at the Front in Lyneham, a body of work that she will be taking to Paddington’s Barometer Gallery in May as a part of the Head On Photography Festival in Sydney, 2015. She also has plans to further her international collaboration with US composer Cheryl E Leonard with whom she has an exhibition planed for September 2015 at the ANU School of Art Foyer Gallery and a planed release with the American sound art non-profit, 23Five Incorporated featuring Leonard’s compositions and Swifte’s photography and drawings.
We’ll be back in the new year with news of our next projects!