Zev Aviv, Isabelle MacKay Sim, Gemma Wheildon, Megan Wilkinson, Meg Dalton, Samantha Rachele, Samuel Parkhill, Alexander Sarsfield, April Widdup, Beatrice Tucker, Mimir Soboslay Moore, ZHI & Genie Stuart.
Performances by Miriam Slater and Shiara Astle
Isabelle Mackay-Sim, This Dream of Flesh #3 (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of Luis Power.
Gallery 1
Friday 9 June - Sunday 2 July
Opening Thursday 8 June 2023, 6pm - 8pm
Sensory Bodies is an adventure through other peoples senses. Centred around the idea of personal sensory experience as a thing to be celebrated, Sensory Bodies will cause discomfort and delight.
We are taught about five senses, sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing, but there are many more. We are bodies made up of sense organs from the inside out, all translating what weโre feeling into processable information. From balance to pain to senses telling us when weโre hungry, sad or too hot. No-one experiences sensations the same way and the variables that contribute to our unique sensory perceptions are vast.
This exhibition aims to create a space for the sensory experiences of queer bodies, disabled bodies, brown bodies and womenโs bodies to be shared in an interactive and joyful way. Sensory Bodies seeks to give insight, share experience and celebrate strangeness through the different ways our bodies tell us stories.
About the Artists
Zev Aviv
Zev Aviv (they/them) is a queer multidisciplinary artist who was born and raised with privilege on stolen Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Theyโve worked as a performer, producer, baby animal wrangler, theatre reviewer and forklift driver.
Their sculptural practice is playful, uncomfortable, exploratory and tactile. Aviv hates that theyโre not allowed to touch most art, so they make art made to touch.
They miss the forklifts.
Miriam Slater
Miriam Slater (they/them) is a Ngunnawal and Ngambri based Queer interdisciplinary artist utilising theatre, Queer club performance and live art.
Their work is a body centred practice, focusing on movement and form to examine identity, representation and community.
Their performances are ardent and raw examinations of the experience of traversing space in an ever shifting and contentious body, often allowing audiences to participate, connect and collaborate.
Shiara Astle
She/her
Shiaraโs fonua is buried in Aotearoa, with ancestral ties binding her throughout the world. Her work explores facets of identity both societal and hereditary via movement and sculpture on Ngunnawal/Ngunawal and Ngambri country
Isabelle Mackay Sim
Isabelle Mackay-Sim (she/her) is a ceramic artist from Canberra (Ngunnawal Country) who graduated in 2018 with Honours from The ANU School of Art, where she is now a lecturer. Mackay-Simโs practice centres around the abstraction of the figure, exploring permutations of the body to express concepts of identity, gender, and difference. Mackay-Sim has an experimental ceramic practice and is fascinated by the meanings that materials and processes bring to her work.
Gemma Wheildon
Gemma Wheildon (she/her) is a Canberra based jewellery artist intrigued by the capacity of physical bodies to represent values and identity, the way we move bodies to express emotion; to engage in verbal and non-verbal communication in culturally specific frameworks. She is currently developing traditional hand-making manufacturing skills such as chasing and repoussรฉ, small scale construction, casting and stone setting. Where possible, Gemma enjoys the challenge of repurposing materials and is interested in cross-media art collaborations.
April Widdup
April Widdup (they/them) considers themself a multidisciplinary artist focused on creating immersive installation pieces. Widdupโs practice focuses on the political potential of art and its ability to challenge and encourage critical thinking. Envisaging an arts practice that aims to not only create, but to innovate. Widdup merges their passion for social justice and sustainability, utilising waste products which are transformed into works which engage controversial and political themes of identity, mobility, and place.
Samantha Rachele
Samantha (she/her) is a designer and illustrator who works primarily in digital and print media. Samantha seeks to explore design as a language which engages the mundane and everyday with a sense of quiet playfulness.
Sam Parkhill
Sam (he/him) is an Australian sound artist/musician who works with instruments, objects and found sound. Sam is particularly interested in the ways in which sound shapes, alters and reflects our perceptions of space and place.
Alexander Sarsfield
Alexander Sarsfield ( he/him) is a Canberra based artist of Ngฤi Te Rangi and Ngฤti Hako descent. Dabbling across various crafts, Alex has a particular love (and hate) for both ceramic and textile sculpture. More recently, he has been learning the techniques of raranga and enjoying a community-based creative practice. In his work, Alex tends to draw out the seemingly mundane, and ponders subtleties of everyday interaction.
Meg Dalton
Meg Dalton (she/her) is a mixed media textile artist working from Ngunnawal and Ngambri country (Canberra). Megโs passion is embroidery, using thread to explore forms, tones and textures of landscapes both real and imagined. Meg is working to reclaim embroidery as a youthful, contemporary art practice beyond the shackles of cross-stitched throw pillows and colonial wall hangings. Meg is an artist with a chronic illness, using art as therapy of the body and the mind.
ZHI & Genie Stuart
ZHI (they/he) is a poet/artist based on unceded Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. They are the author of the award-winning collection of poetry, blur by the; and is one half of the experimental poetry/sound duo known as ่็ (ShaYu). Doing anything but writing, ZHI loves playing. This currently involves tactile mediums like crocheting and nail art. He loves lo-fi stuff and emotional maximalism and is trying his best not to be so obscure.
Follow ZHI @dev0tion111
Genie Stuart (she/her), is an artist and composer living on Ngunawal/Ngunnawal/Ngambri land, currently in residence at Gorman Arts Centre through the Emerging Artist Studio Program. Her recent works, โeverything that rises must convergeโ and โdon____NT))CRY4_me!!!!!!Im BRAVEโ are immersive sound works that use recorded sounds and internet footage to engage simultaneous dis/connection experienced online. She is currently focused on community building, personal aesthetics and craftsmanship through her nail salon, The Talons Salon.
Follow Genie @the_talons_salon
Mimir Soboslay Moore & Beatrice Tucker
In their collaborative work AGENDA BENDA ( 2023), artists Beatrice Tucker and Mimir Soboslay Moore subvert the prevailing narrative surrounding the โqueer agenda.โ The work serves as a satirical
critique on the harmful misinformation perpetuated by news outlets and right-wing media.
An AIโs narrative of a conjured queer dystopian future, 80s workout videos and subliminal trigger phrases integrate to serve as a hypnotic suggestion; intending to activate the queer within individuals.
Megan Wilkinson
Megan Wilkinson (she/her) is an emerging artist living and making on Ngunnawal & Ngambri land Country, Canberra. Megan completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the Australian National University where she majored in glass and has since been active within the tight-knit glass community art throughout Australia. Since completing her degree in 2021 megan has received scholarships and bursaries locally and internationally and has participated in both solo and group exhibitions.
