A national touring exhibition featuring boats re-purposed by regional artists across Australia, The Partnershipping Project has sailed into Lismore Regional Gallery for Summer and is on display until 2 February 2020.
The ambitious project spans two years and includes twenty new installations, twenty regional artists and connects four regional galleries. Each artist on the journey is given a vintage dinghy salvaged in Tasmania to re-purpose as a work of art.
A number of re-purposed boats move on to each new destination but the majority arrive empty, to be re-filled with the work of local artists, just as ships arriving at a port unload and refill their holds with local goods. The exhibition will return to Tasmania next year having circumnavigated thousands of miles across regional Australia gathering new works as it goes.
At Lismore Regional Gallery the exhibition will feature eight boats: two boats that joined the armada in Townsville that were created by Gail Mabo (the daughter of famous land rights campaigner, Eddie Mabo) and Anthony Vanghoua Vue, and two boats by Selena de Carvalho and David mangenner Gough, which have travelled from their original destination in Burnie, Tasmania.
Four boats have been re-imagined by local Northern Rivers artists: Penny Evans, Hiromi Tango, Karla Dickens (with contributor Leigh Arnold) and Aris Prabawa.
Penny Evans is a visual artist whose practice is based in ceramics, mixed media works on paper and sculptural installation. Penny’s work for the exhibition focuses on the disappearance of water from her ancestors traditional Gamilaroi homelands to the north west of Bundjalung country in and around Garah, Mungindi, Boomi and Boggabilla.
Hiromi Tango is a Japanese-Australian artist working across sculpture, photography, installation and performance. Hiromi’s practice is often collaborative, performative and site-specific and generates healing conversations through arts engagement. In Partnershipping she uses photography and sculpture to imagine being a seed, putting down roots in a new and fertile place.
Karla Dickens is a Wiradjuri painter whose practice freely moves across mixed media collage and sculpture, recycling everyday items to explore both gritty current and historical concerns. Her work for the exhibition, created with contributor Leigh Arnold, explores both colonial and indigenous influences on being ‘Lost at Sea’.
Aris Prabawa is a multidisciplinary artist from central Java, living in Lismore and maintaining a career in both Indonesia and Australia. His work for the exhibition explores the importance of connections with people and place.
Conceived by curator Pat Hoffie with associate curator Rosemary Miller the project links regional artists and galleries and poses the question Does Place Matter? The artists come from a broad range of cultural backgrounds and experiences and their works challenge stereotypes about what living in regional Australia might mean. They draw from their global experiences to make changes in their local communities, and to offer new insights.
The Partnershipping Project
Lismore Regional Gallery, 11 Rural Street, Lismore
Exhibition continues to 2 February 2020
Entry by donation
For more information, visit: www.lismoregallery.org for details.
Image: The Partnershipping Project – installation view at Burnie Regional Art Gallery showing works by David mangenner Gough (foreground) and Selena de Carvalho (background) – photo by Rick Eaves