Future Makers: A&D Annual Floortalks
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When
- Where
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Address
Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd Paddington NSW 2021
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Hours
1–2.30PM
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Phone
+61 2 8936 0888
This program of floor talks brings together emerging artists and designers graduating from the UNSW School of Art & Design.
Together they will each discuss their experiences studying and provide insight into the ideas and processes underpinning their final projects presented as part of the A&D Annual 2022 Graduate Showcase.
Program:
Artist Talk | Zi Qin (b. 2000, Sydney, Australia) is a multidisciplinary Chinese-Australian artist based in Sydney. With living experiences in both China and Australia, social and cultural struggles as a misfit form the key inspiration to his practice. Evoked by the suffering of frustration, he captures the unspeakable relationship with others through drawing and painting, and explores the tension between humour and impatience of the new generation. If drawing was a way to understand his subconscious, then sculptural installation is his response to the past. By reconsidering the existences of daily objects, he recontextualises such materials into an image of urban loneliness.
Artist Talk | Maya Hendler is an artist working on unceded Bidjigal and Gadigal Land, a recognition at the core of her Honours work ‘Diaspor-ous’, which reflexively questions how the migrant-self negotiates place-making and home building on sovereign Land. The work explores ideas of dwelling, displacement and how histories are carried from place to place within a field of unresolved futures. Building on an artistic practice across a variety of mediums that has been motivated by social and environmental concerns and ideas around identity, ‘Diaspor-ous’ explores installation as a vehicle of reflection in interrogating migrancy and sovereignty in colonised spaces.
Performance | Nebbi Boii engages in a practice of expanded photography to theatricise the queer post-religious self. Nebbi draws from fundamental Christian doctrine, histories of religious art and ritual, as well as discourses surrounding photography, queer identity and pop/club-culture to produce a vast array of informal, grotesque and irreverent self-portraits. In doing so, Nebbi reimagines divinity as obtained through the photographic lens, camp high fashion outfitting, and performance.
Design Talk | Morgan Mamouney's project 'Sufficient Femininity' explores the leadership gap in the Australian Parliament. Sociologists have attributed the gap to public perceptions of femininity which is seen to play a detrimental role in the representation of women in politics. This design research investigates how graphic design can advocate against gender bias and sexism in contemporary Australian politics. This poster series challenges patriarchal structures through showcasing provocative slurs and harmful stereotypes, documented in the media from real-life exchanges. The design aims to disrupt the ideologies of systematic sexism through a poster series that shocks and confronts the viewer with aggressive typography and bold imagery, calling out the culture of misogyny in Australia.
Design Talk | Connor Knight is an interdisciplinary designer exploring modern, playful and thought-provoking designs, emerging from a background in graphic and spatial design. Connor’s research explores the evolution of social media and the introduction of AI powered Beauty features which can negatively impact users’ perception of authenticity. Responding to this, Connor proposes the digital activist campaign ‘FACE FIRST’. The project comprises a digital hub that provides information on beauty filter technologies, a social media strategy and a series of printed posters about the negative effects of social media usage and the technology behind it.
Performance | Amy-Ann Bailey is an Australian contemporary artist, engaging in a performance and sculptural-based practice. Appropriating domestic practices and forms, Amy questions her place and role as a bisexual cisgendered woman in the domestic space and seeks to critique the home as an institution of the cis-hetero-patriarchy. Employing cleaning as a methodology, the gesture of washing and grooming is reversed through the application of paint, clay and plaster, transforming her body into an object as a reflection of her function in the domestic space.
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The A&D ANNUAL is the largest national showcase of graduate contemporary art and design in Australia, launching the next generation of artists, designers, makers and digital media creators to emerge from UNSW School of Art & Design. This year more than 120 emerging practitioners present new work at UNSW Galleries, AD Space, Black Box, and online at unsw.to/annual.