Category: Cabinet of Curiosities Archive

Our final contribution to the Cabinet of Curiosities ‘Art During Disaster’ comes from Ezra Chapman.

Ezra Chapman is a third year Bachelor of Creative Writing student at Deakin University. She enjoys experimenting with writing and photography, often trying our new methods of combining the two. She is particularly inspired by the Surrealist and Dada Movements.

Ezra’s photographic series, ‘Metamorphing’, is a visual representation of an internal metamorphosis. The breaking open of the mannequin’s neck, along with the violent imagery in the poem, serve to express the immense pain and discomfort some must endure in order to become their ideal selves. The photographs only feature objects Ezra already had in her home. Her hope is that this will encourage viewers to look around their own homes and find unique items and forgotten hobbies, things which they can utilise to channel their current struggles into self-improvement.

Metamorphing

His head is bursting.

His head has burst.

A flower grows.

It’s a good thing.

Philippa Burton is an emerging artist and contemporary image maker based in Geelong and Melbourne and is a second year Bachelor of Creative Arts (Photography) student at Deakin University. Through her practice, she has developed an interested in representing the layers of human consciousness in relation to the intricacies of how we individually interact and interpret these intimate details.

Philippa’s photograph “Resilient” stems from that sense of resilience we hold close during uncertain times in order to emerge stronger out the other side. It is an image that seeks to encapsulate a moment in our shared history, that of vulnerability, the feelings of claustrophobia through confinement and of spaces that bereft from the loss of tactile intimacy. Philippa takes inspiration from British artist Gillian Wearing’s Signs series (1992-3) and London-based Australian artist Chantal Faust, whose photographic practices explore the mechanics of visions through the use of flat-bed scanners.

Our next contribution to this year’s Cabinet of Curiosities “Art During Disaster” is from Lachlan Barker and Sam Weaver.

Lachlan Barker is a 20-year-old Melbourne-based writer and musician currently studying at Deakin University. Sam Weaver is a graphic designer, musician and artist based in Melbourne. You can find more of their works at @saintkeep and @howdi.studio on Instagram respectively.

Lachlan and Sam’s audio visual piece, ‘Dreaddrunk’ is comprised of music and text created using generative technologies. Throughoutit, pleasing and often nature-related words and dulcet sounds are increasingly interrupted and corrupted by politicised ‘trigger’ words and abrasive, cacophonic sounds, enveloping the audience in anuncomfortable space that mirrors the anxiety, incomprehensibility, restlessness, and dread inherent in the contemporary first-world human experience.

Our next contributor to the Cabinet of Curiosities this year is Ebony Muller.

Ebony Muller is a Melbourne-based dance practitioner and doctoral candidate in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. Ebony incorporates her passion for inclusive and caring dance practice, performance and education as themes in her work through various modalities. You can find her teaching dance to people with disabilities at BAM Arts Inc. For more information on Ebony’s work or to get in contact visit ebonymuller.com.

CARE DANCE is an ongoing dance/movement improvisation practice and performance work. This workexists in direct retaliation to wide-spread ideas in dance and art-making in general surrounding violence as power and currency, and as indicative of artistic rigour in art-making environments. To do so, it utilises the ethics of care, a feminist moral theory, in order to further embody caring ideas such as listening, attentiveness, responsiveness and reflexivity in the present moment. With COVID-19 and its related necessary isolation, CARE DANCE (solo) is the isolated remains andis Ebony’s attempt at moving forward, albeit alone.

In CARE DANCE (solo) like its former, Ebony changes her clothes between three colours: red, yellow and green. These ‘traffic light’ colours denote different stages of attention and relationality to non-human others. From red as a focus on where Ebony isat as an individual, the shift from yellow and then green, denotes heropenness to all kinds of relationality, particularly physical sense. CARE DANCE (solo) is a work-in-progress; it is a moment in time of Ebony’s attempt to grapple with change, uncertainty and care in a new environment and shifting forms of relationality.

Our next contribution to this year’s Cabinet of Curiosities comes from Talicia Stewart.

Talicia Stewart is a third year Bachelor of Arts student at Deakin University, majoring in Professional and Creative Writing. She believes there is bravery in accepting that sometimes you’re not going to know everything, and that it’s okay for some things to remain a mystery.

Talicia’s audio piece “Many Voices, One Message”, pertains to the idea of sonder, whereby everyone is living a life as complex and vivid as your own but also relating themselves to the social isolation we are experiencing. The audio piece contains snippets from over 50 sources such as TV shows and movies, voicemails and some original clips to create a story of hardship and loneliness and how it gets better.

Our next contributor to this year’s Cabinet of Curiosities is Amanda Cole.

Amanda Cole is a Victorian based photographer. After first picking up a camera in the early 2000s in a time where analogue was being taken over by digital, she bounces between the two mediums to share her feelings and thoughts about the world around her. You can view more of her work at her Instagram (@amandajcolephotography).

Amanda’s photograph “Beauty in Death” positions viewers to be confronted by their own mortality and fragility amidst natural disasters and global pandemic. It forces us to rethink our family and friendship constructs and how they could be reshaped forever. “Beauty in Death” focuses on how death and destruction, something that usually very dark and gloomy, can be spun and viewed as something beauty and a major part of life.

Our next contributor to this year’s Cabinet of Curiosities is Jade Collins.

Jade Collins is a visual designer who’s been developing her creative aesthetics ever since she and her sister began their own radio station when they were ten using an mp3 player in her bedroom. She is a professional daydreamer who uses her imagination to connect people. Her work has been exhibited in 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, Japan.

Jade’s artwork “Physical vs Social Distancing” aims to highlight the often-unrecognised toll words and labels can take on our mental health. The use of bright and cheerful colours in the physical distancing are to reflect the positives of still being able to connect with friends and family. The darker hues of the social distancing part of the artwork invites depict the bleakness felt by those experiencing isolation amidst spiralling into a deep depression due to the global pandemic.

Our next contributor to this year’s Cabinet of Curiosities is Julia Fazzari.

Julia Fazzari is an emerging creative writer and poet based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her creative interests lie with issues surrounding feminism and environmentalism mostly, although she does like to dabble in concepts such as magic and cryptids. She has been published in Verandah, F*EMS Zine, and Neptune. You can visit her website at: www.lialinari.wordpress.com 

Julia’s zine “Stay-at-home Student Zine” is a digital visual diary of sorts, filled with pages of candid thoughts, poetry, photography and a playlist of songs that all came to fruition during the weird and unsettling times that this world has been thrown into during this pandemic. The zine acts as introspection of how wacky our minds have become over this time, and intends to alleviate some of our anxieties and channel that energy into something different and experimental. You can listen to the playlist featured in the Zine on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6XfccNYFNGvjLN2QN9Uy0m?si=ATjhg6wRRiGx9PS0Igat3Q

Our next contribution to the Cabinet of Curiosities this year comes from Edwina Ollerenshaw.

Edwina Ollerenshaw is an Melbourne born and raised artist and creative, and is currently studying Creative Arts at Deakin University, majoring in Photography. Having spent all her life in Melbourne, she’s grown to be a extremely keen and passionate photographer of the world around her.

Edwina’s photographic series “Deakin During Covid-19” captures the changing environment of universities amidst the global pandemic. Her photos, taken over a number of hours, depict how metropolis settings have become ghost towns, with little to no people navigating the space between class rooms at Deakin’s Burwood campus, and areas like a busy shopping precinct in Box Hill.

Our next contributor to the Cabinet of Curiosities this year is Melina Bunting.

Melina Bunting is a writer, editor and creative based in Djillong (Geelong). She was Verandah 34’s Secretary and the Creator of the Cabinet of Curiosities. She has previously been published in Matters, Verandah and Wordly, and currently writes and edits for Deakin University’s Disruptr.

Melina’s written work “Domestic Objects” is a series of vignettes shedding light on what normal life has been during this time of global pandemic. These vignettes take note of being in a privileged position and being able to use self-isolation as an opportunity to pause and take stock of what we are still fortunate to have. Melina notes that while she herself is still living somewhat of a ‘normal life’, many families in Australia and across the world are not as fortunate or lucky.

Domestic Objects by Melina Bunting
Tales sparked by thingamajigs in my home

Knitting Needles

My closest companion reminds me of calligraphy. There are sharp lines in her wrists and collarbone and the way she pronounces the letter T as its own separate syllable. One winter, I taught myself to knit so I could wrap her elegantly structured frame in squishy wool. Not only would it make her easier to hug, but it would be a physical manifestation of our friendship: we warm each other even on the lowest days. My craftsmanship was abysmal, the attempted scarf a flat rectangle with dropped stitches. I embraced her pointy hugs and warmed her with my words instead.

Glass Cloche

Who was this creature that had stumbled into my home? I remembered his face, but not much else. I’d forgotten that he wasn’t just a jumble of text and a disembodied voice, but a complete physical presence. I took the seat the furthest away from him, trying not to eat him with my eyes. When did he get so elegant? If I stood too close, I was certain he’d evaporate into the afternoon sun. Later, when he’d gone, it was like putting something precious back in its designated place – somewhere static and behind glass, the better to analyse it.

Gold lipstick

Wanna be like the fashionable queers on the internet, resplendent in jewels and neon rainbows. Gender-fluid blurs in the middle of a Zoom rave. Wanna be the androgynous protagonist of my dreams, but I’ve worn the same jumper for weeks and I can’t be bothered looking cute for video conferences anymore. Queer identities are glittering caves with countless crevices. Wanna explore them, but I live with my family and how do I explain why I’ve given myself a chic pencil moustache and put my chest on display? My style belongs to me, but now is not the time to experiment.

Myki Card

Public transport was my first link to independence. Weekends were spent at the local arts precinct, between the library, the gallery, and a record store. They were only 10 minutes away from my home by bus. Summers passed on V/Lines and Metros towards a theatre or artsy cinema. PTV has shuttled me to places that have fed my passion for the arts. Each trip was a moment to breathe: once on the way up, in anticipation of what I would see, and again on the way back, to process all I had experienced. I would turn thoughts over in my head, watching the landscape go by.

Unripe Fig

The fig tree in our backyard was once a place of execution. Dad hung a flytrap from its branches, a clear jar filled with green liquid. It gave off a sickly smell, which the flies found irresistible. At first, you would find two or three floating around in there, drowned. Then there would be five, then ten, then suddenly there would be so many bloated flies crammed into the trap that they were pressed against the sides of the jar. Some of the fresh ones would still be alive, crawling over their fallen kin, unable to get out.

Our next contributor to the Cabinet of Curiosities is Sarah Hart.

Sarah Hart is a multidisciplinary creative currently working on her PhD at Deakin University. Her research for her PhD situates around the retelling of fairy tales and positive connections between women in the form of an illustrated novel. She’s currently on a three month intermission due to COVID-19 and is stuck at home creating art  as she deals with her two young children.

“One Point Five” is a street art piece comprised of paste-ups placed around the streets of Ballarat. The idea of having to maintain at least 1.5 metres distance from our extended family and friends hits home with Sarah’s paste ups, using hearts as her key iconography to show how human connection has been affected by the current times of the global pandemic.

Our first contributor to the Cabinet of Curiosities this year is Abigail Brill.

Abigail Brill is a third year Bachelor of Arts student at Deakin University, majoring in Photography and Film and Television. She loves to be playful and experimental with her works as she believes that we shouldn’t take life too seriously.  Abigail is passionate about creating and sharing new artistic ideas and, above all, learning and broadening her horizons.

Abigail’s photographic series, “Let’s Get Weird (At Home)”, directly sources inspiration from the 1996 classic film ‘Matilda’, mirroring the power of young Matilda in being able to move things with her mind. “Let’s Get Weird” invites viewers to try their own hand at making objects levitate and forget about the fact they’re stuck in their homes feeling helpless, and just have a good hearty laugh.