12 February 2016

Collecting Nostalgia

| CanberraGlassworks
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Official opening: 6pm, February 17
Dates: 18 February to 24 April 2016

Collecting Nostalgia explores ideas about collecting and art making, through the humble glass marble. Marbles can showcase great technical artistry, but they are also treasured objects imbued with memory. If you collected marbles as a child, you are not alone. Marbles embody a special sense of delight, which is perhaps why they have been collected throughout history. In Collecting Nostalgia, marbles are both objects and metaphors for collecting.

Collections are stories told with objects. Holding beloved objects in our hands gives us a tangible relationship to our own histories. Museums and galleries also hold collections. They collect significant artworks and artefacts, using them to tell stories and preserve memories for future generations.

Many people collect glass objects: paperweights, bottles, beach glass, ornaments, figurines and marbles. Artists are often obsessive collectors. From materials to oddities, artists find beauty in the discarded and forgotten.

Canberra Glassworks has invited nine artists from across Australia to respond to the notion of collecting, using marbles as inspiration. Some have reinterpreted their own marble collections, or drawn on the sound of a marble rolling along the floor. Others refer to social media, botanical collections, or pay homage to time-honoured techniques of glass-art.

Each artist’s work reflects a unique relationship to collecting, within the context of contemporary glass art.

Participating artists: Alexandra Chambers (NSW), Tom Moore (SA), Emilie Patteson (ACT), Phoebe Porter (ACT), Danielle Rickaby and Jaan Poldaas (SA), Jan Ridgen Clay (TAS), Trish Roan (VIC) and Mikki Trail (ACT)

Curator: Aimee Frodsham

 

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