This exhibition is currently closed due to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). Please stay tuned for updates on when we will re-open.
Ararat is the only colonial town in Australia to have been founded by Chinese immigrants; Chinese miners established Ararat in the 1850s. Today, this is one of the first things you read when Googling the town, although this history wasn’t always so visible. Through a month-long residency in Ararat, Siying Zhou formed personal connections to place and sought to understand contemporary relationships to the past. This research has informed her solo exhibition Drawing Dashes Between Dots; a mixed-media installation that maps out the entanglements between past and present and the way such snares can influence personal identity.
Zhou utilised public archives including those from the Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre and Ararat Regional Library, as well as the personal archives, memories and stories held by community members, such as passionate community group, the Friends of Gum San. The artist has extracted multiple narratives and perspectives from a fragmented and discontinuous representation of history. Humanising facts and figures, these take us from the 1800s through to today. Throughout this process, Zhou realised she could not separate her family history or personal identity from Ararat’s and has interwoven her narrative into that of the town. History is undoubtedly framed by the memories, stories and identities of those writing and interpreting it.
Collected, Saved and Combined brings together pieces from the TAMA Collection that utilise repurposed items to explore contemporary Australian life. Spanning the 1980s through to today, this includes artworks by Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Sarah Crowest, Lois Densham, Richard Goodwin, Paull McKee, Raquel Ormella and John Parkes.
The act of collecting, saving and combining everyday materials to create new forms, both aesthetic and functional, is often referred to as femmage; a term coined by Miriam Shapiro and Melissa Meyer in 1977. Women have transmitted covert messages in this fashion for hundreds of years. Likewise, the artworks in this exhibition contain critical information the artists wish to share. They use everything from bed springs and clothing to children’s toys, to communicate themes of physical, cultural, emotional and environmental survival.
Activity extended due to popular demand!
Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) is excited to be hosting NGV Kids on Tour from 14 January – 16 February 2020! This program encourages children to engage with contemporary art and design through hands-on activities. Stop by anytime during the Gallery’s opening hours to take part!
This year’s theme, Make art, Make friends, will encourage children and families to unleash their creativity and take inspiration from the NGV’s 2019 exhibitions including Alexander Calder and Kaws.
NGV Kids on Tour is generously supported by The Truby and Florence Williams Charitable Trust managed by Equity Trustees and Official Supplier, Canson Australia.
Children of all ages are invited to the Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) foyer to take part in our free drop-in craft activity, running until January 12. Stop by any time during the Gallery’s opening hours to take part.
Mini Mythical Creatures is a kids activity and exhibition designed by Siying Zhou, Ararat Gallery TAMA’s Artist in Residence. Kids are invited to make their own mythical creatures, inspired by the Chinese dragon, which is a mythical animal from Chinese culture. In China, people believe that the dragon has the power to control clouds and rain. They are powerful protectors of people and animals. The dragon is made up of many different creatures, big and small.
Make your own mythical creature by combining the features of any animals imaginable! You can use the recycled materials provided at the back of the foyer. These will then be exhibited in the Kids Cabinet at reception.
Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) is pleased to announce our upcoming artist talk with Paul Yore, taking place as part of his solo exhibition Let The World Burn, which is showing until 1 March.
Through the uncomfortable intermingling of images, words, ideologies and materials, Let The World Burn questions the cultural codes that govern our bodies and behaviour, and examines the role of art within society.
During his talk, Yore will take participants through the work on show, explaining the methodologies and materials used as well as the concepts and stories behind the pieces.
Ararat Gallery TAMA would love you to join us for this free event.
Please note: visitors are advised that Let The World Burn contains explicit material.
Through the support of Ararat Rural City Council and Creative Victoria’s Full House Program, Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) invites you to participate in a free dumpling workshop with our Artist in Residence, Siying Zhou.
Zhou will share her Dad’s recipe as she shows participants how to make dumplings from scratch. These dumplings will also reference participants favourite family food. The artist invites participants to bring a special ingredient from home to infuse into the recipe.
Materials and ingredients are supplied, and the workshop is FREE, but bookings are essential. Please phone the Gallery on 5355 0220 or email gallery@ararat.vic.gov.au to book your place.
Ages: 5+ (children must be accompanied by an adult)
Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) is pleased to be hosting Siying Zhou, our Artist in Residence throughout November.
Born in China, Zhou is a Melbourne-based artist whose installation works utilise various media such as video, photography, textiles, performance and drawing to examine the cultural in-betweenness of being Chinese-Australian.
Zhou’s residency will focus on the Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre’s collection and Ararat’s Chinese history. She will get to know the community through workshops for school groups and community members, as well as designing a drop-in kids craft activity for the TAMA foyer. Zhou’s residency will support the development of her exhibition with Ararat Gallery TAMA in March 2020.
Siying Zhou’s workshop dates
Drop-in kids craft activity – 20 November 2019 onwards
School workshops – 29 November 2019
Free Dumpling workshop – Saturday 30 November – 2-4pm
Zhou will share her Dad’s recipe as she shows participants how to make dumplings from scratch. These dumplings will also reference participants favourite family food. The artist invites participants to bring a special ingredient from home to infuse into the recipe. This workshop is being held with the support of Ararat Rural City Council and Creative Victoria’s Full House program.
Through the uncomfortable intermingling of images, words, ideologies and materials, Let The World Burn questions the cultural codes that govern our bodies and behaviour; and examines the role of art within society. By using reclaimed material and painstaking hand-embroidering techniques, Yore utilises the historical deployment of subversive domestic hand-craft to lay the woes of the world to bear.
Let The World Burn, takes What a Horrid Fucking Mess (2016) as its central piece. Acquired by Ararat Gallery TAMA in 2016, What a Horrid Fucking Mess is a large-scale, hand-sewn, mixed media textile work that incorporates appliqué, embroidery and painting alongside collaged found Australiana sourced from kitsch tea-towels, graphics from T-shirts and many other disparate elements. These tactile pieces are immediate and familiar; as too is the imagery used to capture Yore’s interpretation of the atmosphere today.
Please note: visitors are advised that Let The World Burn contains explicit material.
Through the support of Ararat Rural City Council and Creative Victoria’s Full House Program, Ararat Gallery TAMA invites you to participate in a free Upcycled Fashion Workshop with artist Hannah Gartside. You will learn practical, hand-sewing skills and how to re-use materials, as well as discussing ways to creatively re-frame the way we think about our everyday environment. This workshop will accompany Fantasies, Hannah’s solo exhibition at TAMA.
Fantasies is an ongoing series of sculptural works that have been crafted from re-purposed women’s undergarments. These translucent sculptures explore connection and dissolving, curiosity for new sensations and the strangeness of being in a body.
Hannah Gartside received a Bachelor of Fine Art (Sculpture) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2016. Prior to her visual art training, Gartside received a BFA in Fashion Design from Queensland University of Technology, and worked as a costume-maker for the Queensland Ballet Company for five years.
This workshop is FREE but bookings are essential. Please phone the Gallery on 5355 0220 or email gallery@ararat.vic.gov.au
Ages: 9+ (children must be accompanied by an adult)