Curated by Andrew Varano

Featuring artists: Sophie Cassar, Clare Milledge, Shana Moulton, Pakui Hardware, Jess Tan, Anicka Yi 

Remedial Works is a group exhibition that brings together six Australian and international artists whose works explore the novel and specific materials of contemporary global societies, and how these materials can affect human bodies, the environment and relationships.

The exhibition looks at how we are now placed within a unique environment of surfaces and substances—from rare earth metals and the ingredients of modern food science to consumer products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals—equally palliative and poisonous, and all connected to capital.

Recalling the maxim ‘the dose makes the poison’, the works in this exhibition look at the fine line between a material’s capacity to repair or pollute both bodies and land. While recognising that most of us are situated within the systems of industrial production and consumption, Remedial Works asks, in light of this, what role can art making perform towards remediation and healing?

The 2016 Hugo Boss Prize winning artist Anicka Yi will be showing her 3D film The Flavor Genome, a fictional narrative in which a flavour chemist goes into the Amazon rainforest to extract a compound from a rare and mythical orchid. The film continues Yi’s interest and research into how our politics are infused into our senses, and how assumptions regarding race, gender and sexuality affect our perceptive field.

The Lithuanian collaborative duo Pakui Hardware’s recent sculptural works On Demand appropriate NASA satellite images that depict the surface of Mars, which are then cropped and zoomed so that the work begins to resemble inflamed or infected skin. As such, the work conflates the surfaces of bodies and landscapes, the macro and micro and the proximate and vastly distant.

Shana Moulton’s video series Whispering Pines depicts her alter ego, the hypochondriac ‘Cynthia’, in a search for perfect spiritual, physical and mental health. Each film sees Cynthia engage in a surreal and magical way with the new age promises of modern consumption. ‘Activa’ yogurt makes Cynthia become weightless, pharmaceutical drugs see her body change into clay and makeup remover strips away the layers of body to reveal an absurd core being of pure energy.

Melbourne based artist Sophie Cassar’s important body of new work stems from her own experiences of chronic illness. Consisting of collaged artist books, assemblage objects and films constructed from iPhone footage and found online video, the work employs cuteness as an equally humorous and devastating strategy to explore the agency of sick girls and women.

Perth born artist Jess Tan’s new body of sculptural work is materially inventive and assembles bought and found materials to create results that are both messy and refined, attractive and repulsive. For PICA she has created an installation which alludes to an ‘inner sanctum’, a site of personal escape. Tan is interested in how personal meaning can be embedded in materials and objects. In her work she employs everything from natural materials, human hair and cheap plastic components, to aromatherapy scents and cosmetics, often finding surprising and poetic textural similarities and allusions along the way.

As part of Remedial Works, New South Wales based artist Clare Milledge will recreate Strigiformes; Binocular, Binaural, an artist-shamanic performance which was recently staged at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway. This will be the first time Milledge, who is well known for her paintings produced backwards on the reverse of glass sheets and for her accumulative total installation work, will enact a performative work in Australia. This free performance will be presented at PICA at 2pm on Saturday 11 November.

Exhibition Curator Andrew Varano said that themes of sickness and healing, human bodies and the land, repair and pollution are present within the exhibition, as are subjectivity, the senses, poetic language and the imagination.

PICA Director Amy Barrett-Lennard said, “PICA has been thrilled to support Andrew Varano, a talented Western Australian curator, in the development and presentation of Remedial Works.

It is an exhibition that tackles timely concerns for all of us living in a globalised world of abundance, aspiration and fear.”

Remedial Works will be opened by Dr Zarrin Siddiqui, President of Pakistanis in Australia and Associate Professor in Medical Education at UWA, on Friday 10 November 2017 at 6.30pm alongside another group exhibition, I don’t want to be there when it happens.

A specially curated public program, including artist and curator talks, a performance by Clare Milledge, a choreographical work by Jay Emmanuel, open studios, and a lively multicultural celebration co-presented with illUMEnate WA, will accompany these exhibitions. PICA will also play host to Open House Perth 2017, a citywide program of events and openings on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 November.

Listing Details

Exhibition
I don’t want to be there when it happens
Date
11 November – 24 December
Location
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
Perth Cultural Centre
51 James Street, Northbridge WA 6003
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Opening Night – I don’t want to be there when it happens & Remedial Works 
Date & Time
Friday 10 November, 6:30pm
Location
All PICA Galleries
Cost
Free | RSVP
_____

Event
Open House Perth at PICA
Date & Time
Saturday 11 & Sunday 12 November, 10am-5pm
Location
PICA Galleries & Studios
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Remedial Works Performance, Artist & Curator Talks
Strigiformes: Binocular, Binaural performance by Clare Milledge followed by artist talks by Clare Milledge and Jess Tan and curator talk by Andrew Varano.
Date & Time
Saturday 11 November, 2-3pm
Location
PICA Performance Space, then PICA West End Gallery
Cost
Free
_____

Event
illUMEnate x PICA
Celebrate diversity and commit to change through creative expression and critical conversations at PICA.
3:30pm– Curator Talk
4pm– Keynote Address from Samina Yasmeen, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, UWA
4:15pm– Storytelling
5pm– Music & Activities
Date & Time
Saturday 11 November, 3.30-6.30pm
Location
PICA Galleries & James St Amphitheatre
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Paper-cutting workshops with artist
Tusif Ahmad
Using the exhibition I don’t want to be there
when it happens as thematic and cultural
inspiration, work with artist Tusif Ahmad to
create paper-cutting art.
Date & Time
Saturday 18 November, 10.30am-1pm
(7-12 years); 2-4.30pm (Adults)
Location
PICA Education Studio
Cost
$25 (Adult) / $30 (7-12)
_____

Event
The Midnight March
A response to the 12 million people who were
displaced during the India-Pakistan partition.
Performance followed by Q&A with Director,
Jay Emmanuel and PICA Curator, Eugenio Viola.
Date & Time
Friday 24 November, 6-7pm
Location
PICA Galleries
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Curatorial Tour with Eugenio Viola on the
occasion of Human Rights Day
Date & Time
Sunday 10 December, 2-3pm
Location
PICA Galleries
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Open Studio Night with artists Bonnie Lane
(USA), Ross Hamilton Frew (UK) and
Sophie Durand (WA)
Date & Time
Tuesday 12 December, 6-7.30pm
Location
PICA Studios
Cost
Free
_____

Event
Open Studio Night with artists Bonnie Lane
(USA), Ross Hamilton Frew (UK) and
Sophie Durand (WA)
Date & Time
Tuesday 12 December, 6-7.30pm
Location
PICA Studios
Cost
Free
_____

Media Enquiries

Exhibition previews for the media are available between 1–3pm on
Thursday 9 and Friday 10 November, or by appointment. 

For all media enquiries and RSVPs, please contact Tracy Routledge, Publicist via: 

e: tracy@trpr.com.au
ph: 0412 223 221

HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGES HERE

Image: Jess Tan, luxury waste and contained emotions, 2016-17. sad balloon, garden weed, earthenware clay, amethyst, PVC plastic, 118 hand sewn tears filled with glitter, glass ash tray and debris from install. Image courtesy of Jessica Quinnell.