Craft ACT warmly invites you to join us for the openings of Collide + Divide and Fire Country.

Collide + Divide

Collide + Divide is a discipline-bending object based exhibition that will feature ten emerging JamFactory associates who work in various mediums. Each artist has been put into a group where they will collaborate on creating a body of work that celebrates interdisciplinary skill sharing, merging both contemporary art and craftsmanship.

The task of each associate is to gain access to new insights and materialities as they undertake this cross disciplinary focus. Collide + Divide is an opportunity to embrace the unique location of the JamFactory, one of the few arts centers in the world to house four separate studios for craft excellence under one roof.

Fire Country

Rebecca Selleck | James Tylor

Fire Country is a furniture and photography installation addressing the physical and cultural significance of fire in Australia. It draws the burnt landscape into the domestic space, revealing its intrinsic beauty as part of key environmental mechanisms. These works are representative of our contemporary relationship with fire and potential for better engagement in the future.

Fire is always here. First Nations people learnt over millennia how to control destructive wildfires and turn them into low intensity cultural burns. These burns are distinct to each ecosystem and timed perfectly to ensure the best outcome for the germination of seeds, clearing of dead plant material for new growth, and the safety of endemic flora and fauna. Contemporary Australia lives in fear of fire. With colonisation, First Nations’ knowledge of Country was overlaid with incompatible perceptions of land management. Urban sprawl, land clearing, and avoidance of fire has led to a point today where catastrophic wildfires cost lives, species, and ecosystems.

Fire Country attempts to embrace fire in Australia as a part of our collective culture. Referencing the symbiotic relationship that fire has with our continent’s landscapes, the work captures the intrinsic beauty of this interplay through the iconic Eucalypt. Through this series of furniture and photography we want to offer not just sorrow for what we’ve lost, but also hope for our future.

To be opened by Dr. Amanda Stuart, Visual Artist, Writer, Curator, + Art Educator.

Please join us

Thursday 19 May

6pm at the Craft ACT gallery

Refreshments will be available from our beverage sponsors at Capital Brewing Co and Lake George Winery.

Exhibitions will continue until 2 July.

Images (L-R): Collide + Divide, 2022. Photo: Michael Haines; Fire Country, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the Artists.