Eight projects as well as public programming and publishing from Australian and international artists and thinkers reflect on the relationship between pedagogy and contemporary art in ‘Shapes of Knowledge’ curated by Hannah Matthews. On show at Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA from 9 February to 13 April.
Mulkun Wirrpanda, The Mulka Project, 2013. Courtesy The Mulka Project, Northern Territory and Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
A Centre for Everything (ACE) makes critical comment with a replica of a famous mining magnate’s 30-ton iron ore boulder inscribed a poem lamenting mining taxes. ACE will serve ‘ice-coal’ treats from the sculpture and expose connections between Australian cultural organisations and the fossil fuel industry. Looking at carbon through a different lens, the socially and environmentally engaged practice of Lucas Ihlein presents a model of the Yeomans Carbon Still to explore the viability of accrediting the soil testing system for a greener future, along with public discussions with expert contributors.
Kym Maxwell and the students of Dandenong Primary School consider personal collecting versus the institutional approach and will contribute their material responses and a theatre performance. The Mulka Project, based in Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem land, stores Yolngu archives in addition to being a site for creation, from audio visual material to new-media artwork. They repatriate artworks which have been collected by Australian and global institutions.
Presentations will also be on view from Alexis Martinis Roe (Berlin), Annette Krauss (Utrecht), Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong) and Chimurenga (Capetown).
