An obvious statement: artmaking is integral to art. Process can sometimes get lost behind product, but any maker knows that time spent in the studio playing with materials, trying new things out and pottering, is where the magic happens. Jess Tan is invoking the pottering methodology— “tinkering with things in a process-lead practice”—in a new exhibition at PS Art Space, in partnership with Cool Change Contemporary.
An invitation to dance is a collaborative project between Kristen Brownfield, jemi gale, Audrey Tan, Clare Wohlnick, and Jess Tan herself, who says, “I wanted to make this connection between us because there’s a crossover of material ethics, of how we consume things and how our practices incorporate slowness and reuse, contemplating materials in the studio.”
Oscillating between rope woven from shredded corn husks, felt tapestries made with recycled wool offcuts, a curtain collaged from detritus, and lo-fi jewellery-based sculptures, the pieces in An invitation to dance are not just in conversation, they are playfully riffing off each other. “When I initially thought about the show, I wanted it to be about material curiosity,” says Tan. “I imagined materials dancing throughout the space, creating this levitating, meandering thing.”
Alongside individual pieces will be a collaborative installation between the artists, in an intentional “blurring of authorship”. The pieces are also not necessarily designed to be ‘complete’, in the traditional sense. “We’re not trying to produce a final outcome,” says Tan, who prefers to view materials as “things that are temporal, fleeting.” She says that they can “come together, be pulled apart, and then we can use them for something else.” The artist wants people to think about an alternative form of labour production: “a slow trickling but progressive rhythm that seeks to challenge the working method of being efficient and producing things.”
An invitation to dance
PS Art Space
In partnership with Cool Change Contemporary
On now—21 December
This article was originally published in the November/December print issue of Art Guide Australia.
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