Island Welcome – a Jewel of an Exhibition to Open in Port Pirie
Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery is proud to present an exciting new exhibition which will be open to the public from this Saturday, 3 February 2024.
Island Welcome explores contemporary jewellery as a gesture of welcome; using the motif of a neckpiece to reference garlands, or leis, used as a symbol of welcome in many islander cultures.
Curated by Belinda Newick, Country Arts SA’s touring exhibition Island Welcome intends to bring attention to asylum seeker issues.
Island Welcome will be on display at Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, in the Vivienne Crisp Gallery between 2 February and 7 April 2024. The exhibition will be open during the Gallery’s opening hours (9am-5pm Monday to Friday; 10am-2pm Weekends & Public Holidays, except Good Friday).
Using a breadth of intriguing and conceptually rich materials – used thongs, seaweed, fabric sausage links, shells, clay, paper, porcelain and streak wire – the artists bring immense skill, insight and compassion to make us consider who gets to say welcome and why?
The works from 12 artists nationwide, including South Australians Jess Dare, Kath Inglis and Lauren Simeoni, extend the dialogue beyond art and craft audiences via expressions of Australian values through craft practice.
With reference to welcome garlands gifted in many traditional islander cultures, each of the 12 artists has made a neckpiece, lei, or garland interpreting the theme of welcome whilst considering current Australian immigration policies.
“Curatorial and craft practice converge in Island Welcome to engage a universalist approach to human rights and the capacity to extend gestures of welcome and to address global displacement,” Curator Belinda Newick said.
The artists presenting in Island Welcome are: Liv Boyle, Michelle Cangiano, Jess Dare, Anna Davern, Nicky Hepburn, Kath Inglis, Manon van Kouswijk, Sim Luttin, Vicki Mason, Belinda Newick, Lauren Simeoni, Melinda Young.
Country Arts SA Visual Arts Manager Lauren Mustillo said, “This exhibition features some of Australia’s most respected and talented jewellers whose immense technical talent and personal values of compassion and inclusion have collided to bring us artworks which have undertones of activism and collectively ask us to contemplate political history, Australia’s cultural identity and our shared humanity.”
The regional South Australian tour of Island Welcome is presented by Country Arts SA and curated by Belinda Newick.
Belinda spent six years in South Australia at JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design, Gray Street Workshop and Zu design jewellery + objects, before settling in Melbourne in 2005.
Island Welcome is on a statewide tour until 2025.
Please keep an eye out for upcoming workshops as part of this exciting exhibition.
Image: Melinda Young, Groundfall Lei, 2018, found shell necklaces, oxidised sterling silver, 60 cm var. Photo: Fred Kroh