Time out

Transformation is a “meaty theme” for Irvine given the nature of her art, the way she uses materials, and the way her practice has evolved throughout her 20-year career. 2021 Design Canberra designer-in-residence Lucy Irvine’s signature work, The Stills, will be the focal point of a Craft ACT exhibition for the duration of the festival in November. Photos: Denholm Samaras. ACT exhibition for the duration of the festival in November. Photos: Denholm Samaras.

Lucy Irvine named Design Canberra’s designer-in-residence

The 2021 Design Canberra theme of transformation is a fi tting one for festival designer-in-residence, Canberra-based artist and educator, Lucy Irvine.

Irvine said transformation is a “really meaty theme” for her given the nature of her work, the way she uses materials, and the direction her practice has evolved throughout her career.

“The different kinds of weaving I’ve developed over the last 20 years now completely interrogate and inform my way of thinking, my way of learning and my way of seeing the world,” she said.

Irvine’s thoughtful and considered response to the festival theme comes in the form of her commissioned signature artwork, The Stills, which will be the focal point of a Craft ACT exhibition for the duration of the festival.

The way the work has been created embodies the theme: Irvine picked out two silicone moulds used to create a recent public art commission and reimagined them through her creative process.

Initially, she poured wax into those sections “over and over again”, each time producing a slightly different result.

From there, the sections were cast in bronze, with the fi nal product featuring 50 pieces, 49 displayed in a seven-by-seven grid, and one on its own.

“Each of these is an interesting form, you also get the sense of them potentially being fragments of something else,” she said.

“In a grid, they begin to suggest there’s some kind of secondary order or vague secondary pattern that holds the whole thing together.”

Irvine said her use of repetition and pattern forming shows the “iterative process of transformation”.

“I’ve been extremely busy the last few years and wanted this to be an opportunity to revisit old work and fi nd a rhythm in terms of the processes I use,” she said.

Appointment ‘almost too neat’

Running 8-28 November, other duties Irvine will take on throughout Design Canberra include the creation of a large-scale, site-specifi c temporary installation at The Cutting next to Lake Burley Griffi n, as well as taking part in a workshop, and presenting an artist’s talk about her exhibition.

Alongside the festival, several other occasions will culminate for her in November.

Running concurrently with the festival will be Irvine’s solo exhibition at Thor’s Hammer that will be the culmination of her PhD research, titled emergent knowledge practices.

“It’s this idea of not working to a predetermined plan but have a series of parameters that you’re responding to and the thing therefore coming into being,” she said.

Irvine said it’s a “wonderful end point” for her PhD research to be part of Design Canberra because her famous 2017 Design Canberra work, Surface Strategies, was completed in the infancy of her PhD.

“As much as I love the thought of transformation being this ongoing process, we are mindful of, there’s a series of really nice end points coming together here as well,” she smiles.

“To have that culminate as part of Design Canberra is almost too neat, but in a fantastic kind of way.”

The Scottish-born artist, who moved to Australia in 2003, has lived in Canberra for the past fi ve years.

Irvine said she has mixed feelings about the planned nature of Canberra, but ultimately regards it as a place of “so much potential”.

“I appreciate that in Canberra you get sections in which you can feel a whole vision and that’s a really interesting thing to encounter and a really good and powerful thing to experience.”

She lamented, however, the lack of visibility regarding the creative goings-on around town.

“From living here for a while now there are fantastic communities, fantastic artists and creative people,” she said. “We need places in which there’s more visibility of that and not fl ittering away to the suburbs in that regard.

“For people when they visit the city, it would be so fantastic to have a clearer sense of what’s actually happening here, because it’s not always easy to fi nd.” - Denholm Samaras

“A THEATRICAL DELIGHT.” The Australian

Perfect for kids

6PM TUESDAY 27 10AM WEDNESDAY28 JULY

time out Book talk

Jeff Popple reviews three books about naval conflict, good health, and a refugee’s desperate journey. More of Jeff’s reviews can be found on his blog: murdermayhemandlongdogs.com

Operation Pedestal by Max Hastings

Harper Collins, $34.99 In 1942 as World War II raged, a large fleet of British naval vessels and merchant ships set sail to Malta to save the ‘island fortress’ from starvation. It was a risky ploy that seemed doomed to failure. Encountering masses of German and Italian aircraft, U-boats and torpedo craft, the fleet pushed on through some of the war’s most brutal naval battles. Expert military chronicler Max Hastings provides a gripping and well documented account of this largely forgotten episode of the war. This is a masterful piece of military history. Recommended.

So You Think You Know What’s Good For You by Dr Norman Swan

Hachette, $32.99 Dr Norman Swan was one of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia and for more than 30 years, he has been delivering common-sense health information through his various media outlets, and as a physician. Drawing on years of questions from ordinary Australians, he has compiled a fascinating handbook about what is good for you. Filled with interesting and important information, it counters the various medical myths, halftruths and internet misconceptions that we all come across. From nutrition to screen addiction to stress and sex, he covers it all in a clear and easily digestible manner.

Escape From Manus by Jaivet Ealom

Viking, $34.99 Jaivet Ealom was raised in Burma as a Rohingya Muslim. After years of sectarian violence and discrimination, Ealom fled to Australia seeking asylum. Instead of gaining refugee status, he was imprisoned on Christmas Island and then held on Manus Island for over three years. Unable to return to Myanmar because of fresh waves of genocide, he staged a clever escape. After a six-month odyssey, he eventually made his way to Canada, where he received much different treatment from what he had experienced in Australia. A moving account of an extraordinary experience.

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