Life in your Hands

This exhibition champions visual art, craft and design as an enabling force to combat solastalgia, the phenomenon identified by Professor Glenn Albrecht as the homesickness you have when you haven’t left home. The artists consulted directly with communities and tour venues to create artworks addressing this issue.

Doug Archibald • Selena Archibald and Donna Fernando • Allan Chawner

GhostNets Australia (Ilka White and Karen Hethey) • Michelle Hamer

Barbara Heath • Janet Laurence • Jeff Mincham • Melinda Young

Recent research indicates that environmental stress is adversely affecting the mental health of communities. The phenomenon recognised and identified as ‘solastalgia’, by Professor Glenn Albrecht, can arise from a variety of causes such as ecological change, economic change, technology, political decisions, and changes to the community. This exhibition not only looks at the causes and effects of solastalgia, but the potential for contemporary visual art, craft and design practice to contribute to debate and healing. The artists in the exhibition were asked to consult and work with communities suffering from solastalgia to create artworks specifically for the exhibition.

 

 

Image above: Melinda Young, Arborescence (detail) 2012. Found wood, artificial plant foliage, oxidised 925 silver, ruby, garnet, carnelian, jasper, labradorite, aventurine, jade, smoky quartz, tourmaline, opal, stone, glass, paint and waxed linen thread, 140 x 60 x 10 cm

Image below: Jeff Mincham, Full Moon – Dry Lake (No end in sight – ruin: January 2009) 2012. Photography by Michal Kluvanek

 

When

Location

Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284  View in Google Maps