In Good Bones, life-size knitted sculptures of elephant and giraffe skeletons sit alongside taxidermy creatures in a style reminiscent of natural history museums. These sculptures tell complex and often dark stories of mistreated circus animals and animals pushed to the brink of extinction by humanity’s preoccupation with excess. Join us for an opening weekend floor talk as artist Michele Beevors is joined by Associate Professor of Art History, Susan Ballard, to discuss the landscapes of extinction, the feminist and environmental nature of Beevors’ practice, and the works on display in Good Bones.
Michele Beevors is an Australian artist and a Principal Lecturer at Dunedin School of Art in New Zealand. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, and a Master of Visual Arts from The Australian National University, School of Art and has exhibited in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.
Susan Ballard (Pākehā) is an Associate Professor of art history at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand where she teaches courses on art and the environment, affect and memory, and art writing. Her book Art and Nature in the Anthropocene was awarded the best book in the AAANZ Arts Writing and Publishing Awards 2022. Su is currently building a collaborative environmental art history of Aotearoa housed inside an excel spreadsheet, and writing Shift Work: Art and Life in the Third Millennium, a co-authored book-length essay to be published by Punctum Press in 2024. Her curated exhibition Folded Memory is currently showing at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.
Price
- Free - RSVP appreciated via eventbrite
Date
- Sat 09 Dec
Time
- 2:00 pm — 3:00 pm
Address
- 45 Laings Road
- Lower Hutt, New Zealand
In Good Bones, life-size knitted sculptures of elephant and giraffe skeletons sit alongside taxidermy creatures in a style reminiscent of natural history museums. These sculptures tell complex and often dark stories of mistreated circus animals and animals pushed to the brink of extinction by humanity’s preoccupation with excess. Join us for an opening weekend floor talk as artist Michele Beevors is joined by Associate Professor of Art History, Susan Ballard, to discuss the landscapes of extinction, the feminist and environmental nature of Beevors’ practice, and the works on display in Good Bones.
Michele Beevors is an Australian artist and a Principal Lecturer at Dunedin School of Art in New Zealand. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, and a Master of Visual Arts from The Australian National University, School of Art and has exhibited in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.
Susan Ballard (Pākehā) is an Associate Professor of art history at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand where she teaches courses on art and the environment, affect and memory, and art writing. Her book Art and Nature in the Anthropocene was awarded the best book in the AAANZ Arts Writing and Publishing Awards 2022. Su is currently building a collaborative environmental art history of Aotearoa housed inside an excel spreadsheet, and writing Shift Work: Art and Life in the Third Millennium, a co-authored book-length essay to be published by Punctum Press in 2024. Her curated exhibition Folded Memory is currently showing at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.
