In & Of
Alysha Fewster
- Opening Night: 23 Feb 2024 | 6pm
In & Of is an exhibition exploring the personal and bodily relationship to place. Through immersive installation elements, the work invites audience members to be folded into the artwork that holds them, positioning the body itself as one of the materials which makes up place. This installation seeks to deconstruct traditional ‘landscape’ depictions, which often position the audience outside of the landscape looking in, and instead explores themes of place as experienced from the inside.
This exhibition is the culmination of Alysha Fewster’s PhD research, which investigates how contemporary art can be used to represent ideas of the self as part of place. In her research, Fewster is particularly interested in edges, and the way that the edges of things are places of coming together, as opposed to thinking of them as points of separation. Within the artwork, textures and edges are highlighted through light and movement, with consideration for how light and movement will interact with the textures of the audiences’ bodies, as they become part of the work.
When you enter this exhibition, you become a part of it. You are invited to walk around, to sit and stay, or even to lay down. In & Of acknowledges the way that humans are part of nature, and that we ourselves are materials from which places are made. You are welcome to stay in the work as long as you like, and enjoy what it is to be in, and of, place.
Alysha Fewster is an artist based in Muloobinba (Newcastle, NSW). Fewster’s interdisciplinary practice spans a range of mediums, including performance, installation, sound, and video.
Fewster incorporates academic art and human geography into her practice, with much of her work investigating edges, emplacement, connection and environmentalism. With an emphasis on place and the bodily experience, Fewster’s work considers the audience’s experience of the work as central to the work itself, positioning the bodies of people interacting with her artworks as part of the artworks.
Fewster’s use of mindful making methodologies, and sharp focus on materialities, postures the process of artistic development as central to the artistic outcome. Fewster considers the experience of art to be a collaboration between the artist and audience; the artist offering up a set of ideas, and the audience taking in and reconceptualising those ideas, imbued with their own personal meaning.
