Framing Gravity, the 2011 AART.BOXX exhibition presented by Accessible Arts was held at Sydney College of the Arts over two weeks in October 2011. The exhibition was attended by 570 people and a range of public programs were well attended including artist talks and art making workshops.
Auburn based visual artist, Carla Wherby is the first recipient of an innovative new scholarship designed to improve access to arts and cultural funding for artists with disability. Wherby’s uses extraordinary graphic and representational skills in drawing to depict the complexity of war in political and social history alongside the resilience of the human spirit.
As part of the AART.BOXX initiative, Accessible Arts has secured funding from Arts NSW for a $4000 professional development scholarship for an individual artist included in this year’s exhibition.
Nine individuals from a competitive pool of 33 applications have been selected to form the committee for AART.BOXX 2011, Accessible Arts’ bi-annual national survey exhibition. Generating ideas and discussions that propel the committee, will commence in mid September 2010.News
Exhibition gateway to engage in the Arts
A dynamic series of public programs for the exhibition Framing Gravity are being presented by Accessible Arts as part of AART.BOXX 2011. These programs will be held over the two week duration of the exhibition at SCA Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney.
"Framing Gravity's public programs series provides an opportunity for AART.BOXX artists to be a part of a wider arts community,” said Jennifer Stockins, textile artist and active member of the AART.BOXX committee.
“This year an invitation has been extended to SCA Jewellery and Object Design students to collaborate in the wearable art workshops Taken to Heart, alongside participants from disability services and the greater community.”
In this workshop, internal organs become the theme for wearable sculpture through externalising the interior and imagined places in our own body.
The idea was created by Jennifer and committee member Rebecca Scrioli, as a response to themes of body that threads through the exhibition and in particular the work of Melbourne artist Kristy Sweeney and her Organ series.
Kristy’s sketches, working with pencil and ink, present internal human organs in dynamic illustrative composition. Her interpretation and use of colour directly challenges the viewer’s conception of the body and appropriate the illustrated textbook diagrams of human organs, further dissected by written narratives that inform elegant and delicate drawings.
“The aim of engaging people with disability in a variety of artistic processes alongside SCA art students, and the dynamic of the two groups with their different concepts of the body, should prove to be a rewarding experience for all,” Rebecca said.
More information about Framing Gravity public programs series is available on the Accessible Arts website. Bookings for Taken to Heart are essential.