Primavera 2015
The MCA's annual showcase for artists under 35 this year connects artists to their environment. By Dee Jefferson
Every year, the MCA invites an artist to curate its Primavera exhibition. In 2015, local Aboriginal artist and curator Nicole Foreshew chose seven young artists from around Australia: Abdul Abdullah, Heather Douglas, Taloi Havini, Vincent and Vaughan O’Connor, Steaphan Paton and Lucy Simpson. Some are city born, some rural; Havini was born in the autonomous province of Arawa, in Bougainville, and migrated to Australia in 1990 – the year of the civil war. The mediums the artists engage in are diverse. Abdul Abdullah, an Archibald Prize finalist in 2014, has also worked in photography, installation and video. Gippsland-born artist Steaphan Paton, a descendant of the Gunai and Monero peoples, works in photography, video, installation, new media and sculpture, the latter drawing on traditional crafts passed down through his people. What the seven artists have in common, says Foreshew, is their connection to land and environment, and what she describes as an “ever-present urgency to have a voice”. Elements from the land (bark, ochres, minerals) are essential to their artworks. Heather Douglas, from the tiny Titjikala community in southern NT, will present a work in ochres on panels of a water tank from her community. Steaphan Paton’s work uses ironbark. Foreshew describes a “quiet urgency of cultural production” to the artists’ work. Using knowledge passed down the generations, the Aboriginal artists are asserting the deep roots of Aboriginal history in this continent, including the land the MCA sits on, which has “huge significance” for Aboriginal and European history.
Museum of Contemporary Art 140 George St, The Rocks 2000. 02 9245 2400. www.mca.com.au. Fri-Wed 10am-5pm; Thu 10am-9pm. Free. Sep 22-Dec 6.