Opening | The Talisman Sourcebook for the Animal Wife and New Frontier

Thomas Breakwell, New Frontier

Opening this Friday, August 9th at 5pm Danielle Hobb's The Talisman Source Book for the Animal Wife will be accompanied by Thomas Breakwell's New Frontier.

 

Hobbs outlines in her statement "The Talisman Source Book for the Animal Wife is a component of my Masters Research project, The Black Swan and Postnatal Depression: preventative talismans and transformative garments for ‘bad’ mothers. The project is an exploration of escapist/transformative garments and protective talismans as a strategy for neutralising moments of crisis, and the possibility of reconciliation between conflicting notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ motherhood."

In the projection spaces, New Frontier is "a video installation exploring ideas of ‘wilderness’ within the Australian landscape and the notion of a sublime experience in nature. By playing with the traditions and expectations of landscape art history, Breakwell attempts to create a new experience within the environment." (statement via Seventh Gallery website) 

Exhibition runs to August 24

Curatorial Detail & Preview | Thomas Breakwell

Thomas Breakwell won the CCP Documentary Award in 2011 and I first saw his work in the finalist exhibition. Squats documents those intriguing out-of-the-way sites that are often occupied temporarily by youth, the homeless or possibly those on the run. Like Siri Hayes and Sanja Pahoki, Thomas directly engages with the creek, in fact, the first experimental shots he showed me were of actual squats he discovered. The final diptych for the ___on this site project depicts a paved-over creek, far from its natural state, with tunnels – one circular, one square – that usher the creek under the suburbs as if it is some secret.  

The underpasses he has documented are squats; for kids skipping school to smoke bongs, dry places for the homeless to nap and unvisited crevasses to stash stolen goods.

www.thomasbreakwell.com