Southern Cross University Art and Design students will showcase their creative talent to the region at the highly-anticipated 2018 graduate exhibition at Lismore campus.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the opening night this Friday (Nov 9) from 5-8pm with the exhibition open Monday-Saturday for two weeks from 10am to 4pm.
The graduate exhibition, previously known as ‘Transit’, will give 24 final-year Bachelor of Art and Design students and four honours students the opportunity to showcase and sell their work before graduating from Southern Cross.
Lecturer of Art and Design Dr Fiona Fell said the graduation exhibition will span more than 10 rooms in the art space in V Block, with some student installations occupying a whole room.
“All of our third year students have been working on self-generated projects this year and every piece is very individual so the show is quite diverse,” she said.
“There are many different mediums, as there’s more diversity and freedom now in the course, which has changed to include design as well as art with new state of art equipment including laser cutters, 3D printers and large format printers from our Fab Lab. This allows the students a more expansive mode of practice.”
“Often artists in graduating exhibitions only get to work with two square metres, but our students are very lucky to have such a huge space which makes for a wonderful exhibition of their major work.”
Dr Fell said one student in particular Naomi Mikkelsen, previously featured in the Brunswick Sculpture Walk, and has created an installation from recycled material that occupies a whole room in the exhibition.
“Naomi has used different sorts of furniture combined with fallen tree branches and connected them using recycled plastic with solar lights illuminating the pieces,” Dr Fell said.
Naomi said it was during an independent project unit as part of her degree, she undertook research in a recycling centre in the UK and has drawn inspiration from her time there.
“For the grad show I have a body of work from recycled products and single use plastic bags and experimenting with the materialism of the product. I have created an installation of trees and lights to create an evocative space where activism and art can tell a story hoping to connect with the viewer and inspire them to think about their roll in environmental sustainably,” she said.
The exhibition will be held in V Block at Southern Cross University Lismore campus and will remain open to the public until Friday 23 November.
