Wayfaring

WAYFARING

BELLA DOWER | SARA LINDSAY | SARAH STUBBS | ZOË VENESS

Craft ACT Craft + Design Centre

26 March - 9 May 2020

Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre is supported by the

ACT Government, the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy –

an initiative of the Australian State and Territory

Governments, and the Australia Council for the Arts – the

Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body.

CRAFT ACT CRAFT + DESIGN CENTRE

Tues–Fri 10am–5pm

Saturdays 12–4pm

Level 1, North Building, 180 London Circuit,

Canberra ACT Australia

+61 2 6262 9333

www.craftact.org.au

Cover: Zoë Veness, Wayfaring vessel #15, 2020,

copper, patinated. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Page 4-5: Wayfaring, 2020, installation view, Craft ACT:

Craft + Design Centre. Photo: 5 Foot Photography

WAYFARING

BELLA DOWER | SARA LINDSAY

SARAH STUBBS | ZOË VENESS

Craft ACT Craft + Design Centre

26 March - 9 May 2020

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Wayfaring

Exhibition statement

Wayfaring means to travel by foot and is an ideal metaphor to describe the pace

of a long-term project by four artists comprising three exhibitions in three years

(2019-2021). Zoë Veness, Sarah Stubbs, Bella Dower and Sara Lindsay met as

lecturers and students in 2016 at the School of Creative Arts and Media, UTAS

in Hobart and in 2019 decided to create new work for an exhibition in Hobart in

2021. Since Zoë now lives in Sydney, a developmental approach was devised

with the aim to produce a cohesive body of work over an extended period of

time with key exhibitions as important signposts throughout the process to

meet and reflect on the synergies and potentialities in each individual practice

and collectively as a group.

The first installment took place in Melbourne at Radiant Pavilion in September

2019. The second iteration, Wayfaring at Craft ACT in Canberra, builds on

the Melbourne show with new work developed by each artist to test different

materials and processes, modes of seriality, combinations of objects and

display configurations with the view to explore and refine curatorial methods for

the final exhibition in 2021.

Opposite: Bella Dower, Peripheral series #8,

2020, silk, sterling silver wire, cotton thread.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

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Exhibition essay

catalogue essay: Jan Hogan

In the exhibitions Terra Celestial and Wayfaring, matter and memory are caught

in a looping exchange of meaning. The objects and images reveal a tender and

playful transformation of materials by artists exploring the world of the senses

and imagination. The works gathered together hold traces of the travels and

explorations of artists taking time to reflect on what it means for a body to

be in place and in time. The Terra Celestial artists paused for a time whilst

undertaking artist-residencies at the Gudgenby Ready-Cut cottage in Namadgi

National Park in 2019. The 50th anniversary of the moon landing framed their

contemplations and haunted their making. They used their precious seclusion

to dream of the stars and to question and reconfigure the science and materials

that achieved this extraordinary event. The Wayfaring artists are connected

by their time in Tasmania where they began to explore their entanglement with

matter and how it absorbs and releases meaning.

Wayfinding, as the anthropologist Tim Ingold argues, involves ‘a skilled

performance in which the traveller whose powers of perception and action

have been fine-tuned through previous experience’ finds their way along paths

and tracks in the world. It involves a constant adjusting of decisions and

movements in response to material conditions and surrounding atmospheres.

In these exhibitions, this process is intrinsic to the creative approaches where

the artists have played and tested materials making sense of both matter and

place.

Making is a slowing down of time and the senses. Matter of all kinds can

capture the imagination, allowing the body to remember other times, other

places. Whilst in varying techniques and approaches, the works all stem out

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of the sensual body; the touching and gathering, walking and balancing body,

situated in place and time. Metals are pressed onto paper, objects into moulds,

slides into cylinders, traces made, memories ignited. In the creation of work,

the body remembers, it uses the knowledge and experience gained in touching

the world allowing an empathetic identification to imbue the materials with

meaning. Objects bring intimacy, remind us that we are not disconnected

minds but are corporeal, thick with sensorial information, living in a palpable,

tangible world.

These works tell stories, they niggle at our mind, one thought takes hold only

to be challenged by a conflicting one, ambiguity and multiple possibilities

reign. Did the artists turned “gudgenauts” really take flight, did they achieve

weightlessness for a moment? Reflecting in Gudgenby cottage or walking

the tracks of Tasmania, the limits of the self are sought in order to peer past

the everyday boundaries, to make dreams manifest from the detritus that

surrounds us. Found objects, from shells to measuring tapes are made into

category-bending forms that bely their apparent insignificance. Containers,

books, jewellery, and photographs are poised with possibilities and references,

becoming animate through interaction with the human body. The resulting

works question whether makers think through the body or does the world think

through them?

Re-locating and re-working matter in places enable a reimagining of their

histories and meanings. Memory is part of this world, to be found and triggered

in the material transformations by artists into objects that resonate with our

senses, remind us of the specifics of our body on earth but also our dreams of

the stars. The tools of science; telescopes and sonars, microscopes and rulers,

are all part of humanity’s attempt to hear the language of the world. Objects

made by artists remind us of the body as the conscious subject of experience.

With nods to the imagination of the sciences, makers bring transcendence to

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us on our daily experience, achieved through responding to the imaginative

transformation, re-arrangement, and re-presentation of matter.

The investigations by these artists makes us pause and wonder again at the

earth we live on, our relationship to the stars and moon, to the objects we touch

and in return touch us. This time to pause and think, reveals to us again the

beauty of our world and the universe that we are spinning through. As we gaze

at the moon, we ‘bathe’ in its glow, yearn for its return, our emotions ebb and

flow with the tides. There is a constant emotional pull that we often forget in

our urban dwellings, but which opportunities of wayfaring and celestial gazing

remind us of; the world thinking itself through us.

Jan Hogan

Head of Discipline - Art,

University of Tasmania

i Ingold, T 2000, The Perception of the Environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill,

Routledge, p. 220

Opposite: Zoë Veness, Wayfaring vessels #10-12,

2020. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

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Bella Dower

Biography

Bella Dower is an emerging multidisciplinary

artist and designer

based in Hobart, Tasmania. By

drawing on a variety of materials

and processes her work aims to

visualise elusive subjects, focusing

on memory and temporality. She

received a Bachelor of Fine Arts

with First Class Honours in 2018

from the University of Tasmania,

School of Creative Arts and Media,

and awards including the Cultural

Environments and Heritage Honours

Scholarship in 2018, the UTAS

Dean’s Honour Role in 2017. Dower

was recently awarded the FIND

Contemporary Jewellery x Arts TAS

collective bursary grant, exhibiting

in the FIND Contemporary Jewellery

space whilst starting an Artist in

Residence position at the University

of Tasmania, School of Creative Arts

and Media in 2019.

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Artist statement

Peripheral, 2020

Peripheral lingers on the indexical

and the amalgamation of memory.

The indexical speaks of the physical

and meta-physical traces of life;

it is not an extension of reality

but instead imbued with traces of

reality. Using excerpts of analogue

photography from my personal and

found archive, the images oscillate

with varying degrees of ambiguous

and recognisable detail. Transferred

to sheer fabric and thin ceramic

decals, there is a diaristic quality to

Peripheral.

I describe my work as synecdochal,

pieces of a larger whole. In this

sense, the every-day passing of

time is seen in fragments. The

materials hold an artefact quality:

photography, porcelain, and fabric

speak fluidly of the passing and

perpetuity of time. Using processes

which are imbued with the past,

such as analogue photography

which chemically records the

temperature and light at the time

of capture, it becomes a statement

on the amalgamation of memory.

Peripheral meditates on both the

‘memory image’, and the history

of jewellery as a commemorative

device. It is a contemplation on the

process of remembrance and the

materials which prompt us.

Opposite: Bella Dower, Peripheral series #10,

2020, silk, sterling silver wire, cotton thread.


Page 14-15: Bella Dower, Peripheral series #12

and #13, 2020, silk, sterling silver wire, cotton

thread. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

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Sara Lindsay

Biography

Artist statement

Sara Lindsay is an emerging

Hobart-based artist, designer and

object maker. Her work has been

selected for exhibitions including

the Clarence Prize for Excellence

in Furniture Design in 2017 and the

Hobart City Council Design Award

in 2016. She received the Jim

Bacon Memorial Scholarship and

the Jonathan Holmes Scholarship,

both from UTAS, in 2015. Sara is

currently a Master of Fine Arts

candidate at UTAS, School of

Creative Arts and Media where she

graduated with a Bachelor of Fine

Arts (Honours) in 2015.

Right and page 18-19: Sara Lindsay, Progenitor

series, 2020, paper, DLA, stainless steel.


Sara Lindsay

Progenitor series.

Paper, PLA, Stainless Steel

Dimensions variable.

2020

In 1892 Walt Whitman wrote “Every

atom belonging to me as good as

belongs to you”.

In this world where the

technological is embedded in the

everyday, the path of our lives is as

much forged by the movement of

our physical bodies through space

as it is through our imagination

travelling the ether. This work tracks

back a step in the evolution of 3D

printing technology to its precursor,

when people first imagined the

accumulation of the print on paper,

and speculates on the intersections

of technology, the human made

object and the body.

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Sarah Stubbs

Biography

Artist statement

Sarah Stubbs is a contemporary

jeweller interested in intersections

between design and visual arts. She

has worked within the visual arts

for the past twenty years both as a

collaborative and solo artist. Sarah

has had her work represented in

numerous exhibitions locally and

overseas including the Tasmanian

Museum and Art Gallery, the

Queen Victoria Museum and Art

Gallery, West Space, Para/Site

Art Space Hong Kong, Annandale

Galleries, Centre for Contemporary

Photography, the Ian Potter Gallery,

RMIT, and Monash University’s

Switchback and Faculty Gallery.

Sarah is currently Lecturer at the

School of Creative Arts and Media,

UTAS in Hobart.

Opposite: Sarah Stubbs, Nest and Wayfaring still

life 7 (detail), 2020, ice porcelain.

Page 22-23: Sarah Stubbs, Wayfaring still life 6, 1

and 4, 2020. Photos: 5 Foot Photography

TRACES

Collecting through Wayfaring

Revisiting traces of earlier ideas and

actions

Casting and the unexpected

Clay and memory

Collecting Traces

Wayfaring presents a framework

and mode operands to produce

work which is exploratory and

material-led. Central to this is the

exploration of narrative jewellery

and the relationship between

objects and memory. I propose

strategies to examine and draw into

relief the material and poetic traces

of place, re-imagining past lives and

practices.

My methodology is cross

disciplinary, bringing together

placed based visual memory

practice, phenomenology, and

object design.

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Zoë Veness

Biography

Zoë Veness is a contemporary

jeweller and object maker. Her work

has been exhibited in Australia, New

Zealand, Japan, Korea, Singapore,

London, Scotland, and Germany,

and is held in public collections at

the National Gallery of Australia and

the Art Gallery of South Australia.

She was a recipient of an Australian

Postgraduate Award for PhD

research at UNSW Art & Design

in Sydney in 2011 and Australia

Council Visual Arts Grants in 2002,

2006 and 2017. Currently a lecturer

at UNSW Art & Design, Zoë was

previously Studio oordinator of 3D

Design at the School of Creative

Arts and Media, UTAS in Hobart.

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Artist statement

Wayfaring is an evolving series of

lidded containers for an exhibition

project with the same title, that are

hand-fabricated from brass, copper

and sterling silver. Each can be

held within the palm of one’s hand

and are intended to store small

precious things. Nine were first

created for Wayfaring in Melbourne

at Radiant Pavilion in 2019 and

over the summer of 2019/2020

while a bushfire was burning not

far from my home on the South

Coast of NSW, I made another nine

containers for Wayfaring at Craft

ACT in 2020. Ironically, while fire

ravaged the landscape around me it

was harnessed in my studio to form

these works. Simple parameters

were set for the project of cylindrical

hollow forms with lids to focus on

variations of surface detail. Each

container or vessel as I also like to

refer to them, is likened to a footstep

that slowly shifts my practice

towards a greater understanding of

how to connect with a sense of time

and place via objects. Assembled

as a series of cylindrical forms they

evoke a landscape of earthly tones

and blackened surfaces. Imbued in

the work is also a passion for craft

skill, for the simple and ongoing

challenge of making things well, of

executing the perfect solder join, of

finding the ideal balance between

form, surface texture and utility,

and of seeking simplicity through

the alchemical complexity of

metalsmithing.

Opposite: Zoë Veness, Wayfaring vessel #10,

2020, brass. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Page 24-25: Zoë Veness, Wayfaring vessel

complete set, 2020, brass. Photo courtesy of

the artist.

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Wayfaring, installation view, 2020, Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre. Photo: 5 Foot Photography

List of works

Bella Dower

1 Peripheral #1, 2020,

southern ice porcelain decal,

silver

$425



silver

$220


silk, silver, cotton thread

$350



silver

$175



silver

$180



silver

$380



$290



$380



$290



silver

$380



$350

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List of works



$350

17 Progenitor series #2,

2020, dimensions variable,

paper, PLA, stainless steel

$250 each



silver

$380




$250 each



$290




$250 each



silver

$250




$250 each

Sara Lindsay




$250 each




$250 each

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List of works

Sarah Stubbs

27 Still life 6 (Bath street),

2020, ice porcelain

$400

22 Still life 1 (Metal room),

2020, ice porcelain

$450

28 Still life 7 (Hunter street),

2020, ice porcelain

$400

23 Still life 2 (Plaster Room),

2020, ice porcelain

$800

Zoë Veness

24 Nest, 2020

ice porcelain

$600

29 Wayfaring Vessel #10,

2020, brass

$420

25 Still life 4 (Sarah’s walk),

2020, ice porcelain

$400


2020, brass

$380

26 Still life 5 (Hunter Street at

night), 2020, ice porcelain

$400


2020, brass

$320

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List of works


2020, brass, copper, gilding

metal

$660


2020, copper

$580


2020, brass, copper

$660

38 Wayfaring Vessels

complete set #10-18, 2020

$4,860


2020, copper

$660


2020, brass

$560


2020, brass

$620

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Wayfaring

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