The Abandoned Boudoir showcases the work of 22 Australian artists and designers, but it is not just an art exhibit. Located in a hotel room, the installation allows viewers to indulge their voyeuristic streaks by presenting the items as the belongings of an imaginary inhabitant.
Organized by Asialink at the University of Melbourne, The Abandoned Boudoir has toured to Beijing and Bangkok, with India next on the itinerary. It will be open at the Home Hotel in Xinyi District from today through Nov. 2. Visiting times must be reserved in advance; small groups of about 10 visitors are allowed in the room for a half an hour at a time.
Curator Marisia Lukaszewski creates her own narrative when she arranges and re-arranges the installation each day, but viewers are encouraged to imagine the woman who lives there for themselves.
Photo courtesy of Asialink and aestheticalliance*
“She’s a very strong, post-feminist woman. I’m not giving off the impression that she has a partner. You really don’t know,” Lukaszewski says. “The clothing and jewelry, all the items point to a very highly glamorous and feminist mystique.”
When visitors come in, it is as if the woman has just gone out, leaving behind books, clothing, jewelry, purses and rumpled bed linens. Sometimes messages are scrawled across a mirror in lipstick, while on other days pieces of broken plates are scattered on the floor. Viewers are left to wonder if a lively party or rowdy fight has just taken place.
“We’ve all become fascinated by the cult of personality and looking at the way we live and the way that other people live,” Lukaszewski says. “That is part of the constant search for meaning in our lives and how we compare ourselves to other people.”
Photo courtesy of Asialink and aestheticalliance*
More than 100 works are included in the exhibit. Lukaszewski’s goal was to gather together items that convey an “Australian sense of glamour” but have a universal appeal. Many pieces blur the line between fine art and design and explore themes like the impact of European colonialism on the country’s culture and landscape.
A duvet cover created in collaboration with home textiles company Third Drawer Down is printed with two of Perth-based artist Andrew Nicholls’ drawings. One side shows Australian wildflowers that look innocuous until a closer inspection reveals venomous redback spiders crawling in the foliage. The reverse features a drawing called Some Demons, White Australians. Inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, it shows human limbs enmeshed with insect and animal bodies.
“There is still a sense in Australia that white people are an introduced species. As much as I love Australia, we can be a really racist country and to me that is ironic because white people have only been here for 200 years,” Nicholls says.
PHOTO courtesy of Asialink and aestheticalliance*
The broken plates used in the installation were originally part of a limited edition series called In Excess, Nicholls’ reinterpretation of traditional blue and white china designs created by English companies like Spode, where he did a residency in 2004. They were damaged in transport after another installation.
“Even though I was devastated when they broke, this show gave me the opportunity to show these objects and it gave them a new way to tell a story,” Nicholls says.
Intact plates are also featured in the installation and several show images of invasive animals and plants like rabbits and Paterson’s curse, both of which were introduced in Australia by European settlers and have had adverse effects on endemic species.
Photo courtesy of Asialink and aestheticalliance*
“I’ve always been very interested in [English blue and white china] because it is intrinsically linked to colonial history,” Nicholls says. “A lot of ceramic companies, particularly Spode, for 250 years their factories kept perpetuating a romanticized version of British colonization.”
Other items in the installation comment on the fact that most Australians live in cities within the country’s eastern states. A collaboration between fashion designer Alexi Freeman and jewelry designer Tessa Blazey features bold, geometric patterns meant to echo the carefully laid out grid plans in places like Melbourne. The pieces also add another facet to the woman who inhabits The Abandoned Boudoir.
“She’s no shrinking violet,” Lukaszewski says. “These are really strong graphic prints.”
In each city she has visited with the exhibition, Lukaszewski seeks out work by local artists and designers, in part for potential inclusion in a similar installation she wants to open in Australia, but also for her own enjoyment.
She hopes the intimate and participatory nature of The Abandoned Boudoir will encourage viewers to take a closer look at their own belongings and surroundings.
“It’s a comment on consumerism,” Lukaszewski says. “It’s about consumerism, but it is also about memory and not just buying things for the sake of it, but actually buying things that mean something.”
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