Object Therapy - ADC On Tour: An Australian Design Centre
Exhibition dates: 24 April to - 2 June 2019
Exhibition opening:
Friday, 26 April, 2019
6pm
$10 entry/$7 friends
Object Therapy
ADC On Tour: An Australian Design Centre national touring exhibition
Why do we hold onto objects? How do objects and memories connect? What happens when a treasured object breaks and how can we repair it?
30 broken objects have undergone therapy – treated and ‘creatively’ repaired by a designer or artist. Object Therapy encourages us to re-think our consumption patterns and re-evaluate the broken objects that surround us.
It explores the role of repair in our society and its possibilities. In 2016 members of the public were invited to submit broken or damaged objects for possible repair. From 70 submissions, 30 objects were selected including furniture, ceramics, household appliances, textiles, sentimental objects and, unexpectedly, one human. At the drop-off, object owners were interviewed so as to better understand their relationship with the object and their perceptions of waste and repair. The broken objects were then handed over to a designer or artist for creative repair. The Object Therapy repairers are diverse in discipline and come from all around the world, including São Paulo, Amsterdam, Japan and Australia. Object Therapy is a practical study of repair and its possibilities – building a new body of knowledge around repair, the design process, objects and their meaning. Often repaired objects are perceived as being of less value. Object Therapy seeks to challenge this preconception, celebrating repair as a creative process that can add value.
Object Therapy is a project by Hotel Hotel as part of their Fix and Make program, developed in collaboration with UNSW Art & Design and Australian National University School of Art & Design.
Object Therapy is supported by the ADC On Tour program funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and is assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program. The Visions of Australia regional exhibition touring program supports audience access to Australian arts and cultural material, with a particular focus on tours to regional and remote Australia.
Australian Design Centre is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. Australian Design Centre is assisted by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW, and the Australian government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Image Credit: Rachel's Bagpipes. Repaired by Dylan Martorell. Photos by Lee Grant. Image copyright Hotel Hotel.
