the Beholders This week: Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected

Joe: This piece feels like stepping inside the collection of a giant. You don’t know where to look at first because it’s so comically big.

Amira: Are we looking at the BFG’s crayon collection?

The answer: Not even close, come on now. We’re looking at Emily Floyd’s Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected. Obviously.

Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected is a 27-metre-long art installation currently on display at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. The installation is the centrepiece of Emily Floyd’s exhibit, which includes various other pieces inspired by, in the words of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, “meaningful, collaborative, narrativebased learning”.

Despite the scale of the installation, the simplistic and colourful design of tumbling books will remind you of every primary school classroom you’ve ever set foot in. Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected creates a sense of nostalgia and reminds you of the times when you couldn’t even tie your shoes, let alone piss up on a Wednesday. And if you want to keep that feeling going, then be sure to have a go at the interactive stamp tables set up throughout the exhibit. Every little crumb of nostalgia helps, right?

And that is exactly what separates Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected from the other 27-metre-long art installations in Dunedin. Various tables are set up throughout the exhibition with paper and stamps for you to make whatever you want with, which is what we spent 90% of the time doing and forgot why we were there in the first place. Which means that the exhibition was effective, right? We certainly thought so. For a minute there, there was no climate crisis, there were no exams, there were no bins to take out. There was just the arts and crafts room of a big, friendly giant.

Recommended song for your visit: Washed Out – The Grogans.