Exhibits,
Mira Oosterweghel Objects for ruminant restraint
Opening: Wednesday 5 June, 6 - 8pm Dates: 5 June - 29 June, 2019
“Objects for ruminant restraint” 2019, is a new work using the body in performative ways in conjunction with objects relating to farming practices. Drawing on childhood experiences of farm life and working in a shearing shed, the work sits uncomfortably with the underbelly of agriculture as a colonial weapon. Engaging with iconic images of pastoral life such as Tom Roberts’ Shearing the Rams (1890), the work grapples with the often-romanticised values of strong, masculine labour and the productive relationship between man and nature in the bush.
Mira Oosterweghel lives and works in Naarm, she has exhibited in ARIs and galleries in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and the Netherlands. She has been awarded an Australia Council New Work Grant, 2016, the Erin Svigos Award for Best Visual Art, Adelaide Fringe, 2015; an ArtStart grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, 2014 and a Monash Global Scholarship in 2010.
Mira acknowledges the Gunditjmara people as the owners of the land on which the works were filmed, where sovereignty was never ceded. She pays her respects to their elders — past, present & emerging — and stands in solidarity with their ongoing resistance against colonisation.