Traces
Traces is the first exhibition in the MADA Gallery curated by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse as part of The line is life itself. The exhibition features work by Hideo Hagiwara, Gladys Kemarre, Kate O’Boyle, Stanislava Pinchuk, Nina Sanadze, Udo Sellbach, Ana Vaz and Wanapati Yunupiŋu, with additional contributions from Vanessa Berry.
Traces reckons with what remains and what is carried forward, in an exhibition uniting new and existing work with selected prints and etchings from the Monash Collection. An acknowledgement of the trace invites considerations of formation of time, memory, place and understanding but additionally, recognises marking, impact, effect and consequence as fundamental in the creation of relationships, narratives and structures which construct individual and social realities.
Drawing from the work of anthropologist Tim Ingold, a self-identified linealogist, Traces is the first exhibition in The line is life itself — a series of exhibitions for MADA Gallery throughout 2023 interrogating taxonomies of the line. Central undercurrents within this exhibition are considerations of memory or memorial, with the trace recognised as the persistence of an action past its initial register. Exploring this through physical, material, speculative and hauntological frames, the works presented in Traces consider the endurance of contact and encounter.
The second exhibition in this series, Threads, extends these considerations through work addressing questions of entanglement and connectivity. The final part in this series, Surfaces, attends to the relationship between lines in their multiplicitous forms and the foundations upon which they are presented.
The line is life itself
The pen stroke, the path, the horizon - the line is a generous thing.
Ubiquitous, it moves in any and all directions; expanding, multiplying, tangling and recreating itself across personal, material, physical and speculative frames. Within these it becomes an ordering principle, a means of giving shape to the fundamental structures of material and life. As a tool or vessel, the line makes sense, makes meaning or strikes it out. Through the line, we can connect disparate nodes, follow their entanglement or separate them forever.
Drawing from the work of Tim Ingold, The line is life itself considers the expansive possibility of the line as a means of constitution and connection. Adopting Ingold’s taxonomy of the line—trace, thread, surface—the three exhibitions comprising The line is life itself attempt an engagement with the line beyond simple subject, object, or stylistic register. Rather, each exhibition recognises the line as part of a thrumming web of connectivity, an interweaving, or an unbounded entanglement, as evidenced in material and scholarly practice.
Moving beyond mere microhistory, these three exhibitions consider the connective possibilities of the line through diverse material practice, in order to develop productive frames for linear inquiry. As Ingold writes, ‘Indeed, what is a thing or a person but a tying together of the lines?’ The line is life itself considers the constitution and implication of connecting these lines and in doing so, how this gives shape to, and facilitates the navigation of, the world.
Event Details
- Date:
- 11 March 2023 at 12:00 am – 1 April 2023 at 12:00 am
- Venue:
- MADA Gallery, Building D, Caulfield campus
- Categories:
- Fine Art; Gallery / Exhibition; Gallery: MADA Gallery
Description
Traces is the first exhibition in the MADA Gallery curated by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse as part of The line is life itself. The exhibition features work by Hideo Hagiwara, Gladys Kemarre, Kate O’Boyle, Stanislava Pinchuk, Nina Sanadze, Udo Sellbach, Ana Vaz and Wanapati Yunupiŋu, with additional contributions from Vanessa Berry.
Traces reckons with what remains and what is carried forward, in an exhibition uniting new and existing work with selected prints and etchings from the Monash Collection. An acknowledgement of the trace invites considerations of formation of time, memory, place and understanding but additionally, recognises marking, impact, effect and consequence as fundamental in the creation of relationships, narratives and structures which construct individual and social realities.
Drawing from the work of anthropologist Tim Ingold, a self-identified linealogist, Traces is the first exhibition in The line is life itself — a series of exhibitions for MADA Gallery throughout 2023 interrogating taxonomies of the line. Central undercurrents within this exhibition are considerations of memory or memorial, with the trace recognised as the persistence of an action past its initial register. Exploring this through physical, material, speculative and hauntological frames, the works presented in Traces consider the endurance of contact and encounter.
The second exhibition in this series, Threads, extends these considerations through work addressing questions of entanglement and connectivity. The final part in this series, Surfaces, attends to the relationship between lines in their multiplicitous forms and the foundations upon which they are presented.
The line is life itself
The pen stroke, the path, the horizon - the line is a generous thing.
Ubiquitous, it moves in any and all directions; expanding, multiplying, tangling and recreating itself across personal, material, physical and speculative frames. Within these it becomes an ordering principle, a means of giving shape to the fundamental structures of material and life. As a tool or vessel, the line makes sense, makes meaning or strikes it out. Through the line, we can connect disparate nodes, follow their entanglement or separate them forever.
Drawing from the work of Tim Ingold, The line is life itself considers the expansive possibility of the line as a means of constitution and connection. Adopting Ingold’s taxonomy of the line—trace, thread, surface—the three exhibitions comprising The line is life itself attempt an engagement with the line beyond simple subject, object, or stylistic register. Rather, each exhibition recognises the line as part of a thrumming web of connectivity, an interweaving, or an unbounded entanglement, as evidenced in material and scholarly practice.
Moving beyond mere microhistory, these three exhibitions consider the connective possibilities of the line through diverse material practice, in order to develop productive frames for linear inquiry. As Ingold writes, ‘Indeed, what is a thing or a person but a tying together of the lines?’ The line is life itself considers the constitution and implication of connecting these lines and in doing so, how this gives shape to, and facilitates the navigation of, the world.