Exquisite : Box of Birds Project

Wellington Waterfront, between Te Papa and Circa theatre
May 17th-29th 2004
Sponsored by Wellington Waterfront and PSP Ltd

(photo: Michael Hall)

first layer - Pippa Sanderson
second layer - Genevieve Packer
third layer - Sandra Schmidt
fourth layer - Gabby O'Connor
fifth layer - Lisa Munnelly

Exquisite: Box of Birds Project, brings Pippa Sanderson, Genevieve Packer, Sandra Schmidt, Gabby O’Connor and Lisa Munnelly together in the same cubic metre Art Box, the collaborative process amplified by these dimensions and access constraints, as each work is supported physically and conceptually by the preceding work. Box of Birds is the artists’ collective take on the Surrealist Exquisite Corpse game where an artwork is made by a group of players who each respond to the previous artwork, of which they can only see a fragment. For Box of Birds, the artists each had one day to create and install their work, after seeing the preceding layer only the evening before. The day-by-day pace of the installation process meant that passers-by going to and from work could check each new development. There is a strong sense of play and the artwork open-ended, creating dialogue that ricochets between layers and surrounding landscape.

To place Exquisite: Box of Birds outside a building purported to convey the nation’s natural and cultural histories also speaks of the challenges of presenting the world within the confines of any box. Box of Birds reads as an escaped vitrine densely packed with curiosities, though the objects on display allude to other points of reference rather than offer detached information. In Box of Birds the artists embark on an archaeological dig into their own art making past and the traditions of collection and display, to construct an inquisitive and eloquent work.

The artists, Lisa Munnelly, Pippa Sanderson, Genevieve Packer, Sandra Schmidt and Gabby O’Connor may have been born in different corners of the globe, but are now based and working collaboratively in Wellington; their collective experience and individual practices ranging through multi-media visual artist, writer, maker, collaborator and craftcamper; working across and through disciplines, materials, spaces and time zones.