Cartoonist’s edgy exhibit
Themes explore incarceration and freedom
THE Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s Dark Mofo centrepiece, Journey to Freedom, opens today and artist Sam Wallman, left, has two entire walls of the exhibit dedicated to his work. The Melbourne-based political cartoonist’s creations are deceptively comic, but have a serious edge.
EXCITEMENT is building ahead of Tasmania’s popular midwinter festival, with some key exhibitions and shows opening today to kick off Dark Mofo 2018.
As mysterious upside down crosses are installed across the city and workers begin to prepare Princes Wharf No. 1 for next week’s Winter Feast, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery will open its Dark Mofo centrepiece A Journey to Freedom today.
Across the river, Rosny Barn will launch Troy Emery’s Wildlife exhibit, featuring shaggy, dog-like sculptures. The show is open today between 11am-5pm.
Late rock ’n’roll legend Lou Reed’s guitars and amps will create a roaring hum at Domain House from 2-8pm. The free act involves 24 strings activated by magnetic cones unleashing a surge of sound.
Tanya Tagaq will also bring a musical act to the stage on day one, performing an explosive live score to a screening of Robert J. Flaherty’s silent chequered classic Nanook of the North, at the Odeon Theatre from 8pm. The film documents the life of an Inuk family in the Arctic.
The appearance of the inverted red crosses have had many locals scratching their heads. Creators Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, from CPS Productions, were scheduled to enlighten locals about their work involving three 20m crosses yesterday.
But the public will have to wait a little longer for the reasons for the installation after the media event was postponed. CPS Productions were behind the mind-bending House of Mirrors set up at Dark Park in 2016.
The themes of incarceration and freedom are central to the new exhibition opening tonight at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
A Journey to Freedom is guest curated by Swiss-born Barbara Polla and brings together thought-provoking works by 13 European and Australian contemporary artists, including a photographic series by Tasmanian Ricky Maynard.
Sam Wallman has two works in the exhibition, including At Work Inside Our Detention Centres: A Guard’s Story.
The powerful art work gives the audience an insight into the interaction between asylum seekers and guards at Australia’s immigration facilities.
His other work, which has been painted on a gallery wall, explores the history of imprisonment in Tasmania, as well as issues relating to contemporary and future prisons. Part of the painting references a drug research trial in England, which involves chemicals that would psychologically disturb a prisoner into thinking they’ve been in jail for thousands of years, rather than a week or two.
From donning a virtual reality headset for a seven-min- ute journey into outer space by artist Shaun Gladwell, to video installations, sign-writing and navigating around a small concrete slab the size of a prison cell, the multimedia artworks ask viewers to think about what imprisonment means and how we can change it.
“By imprisonment, I mean the real ones of the walls of the jails but also the imprisonments we have inside our minds,” said curator Ms Polla.
“These works specifically talk about prisoners, but in some ways we are all imprisoned in our body and in our brain.”
Along with her international curating work, Ms Polla has had an interesting background, first training as a medical doctor in her hometown of Geneva before entering the Swiss National Parliament as an MP.
Co-curator Dr Mary Knight said having different institutions working together “creates some very exciting projects”.
A Journey to Freedom opens today at 6pm and runs until July 29.