In The Making - Unassigned
When I went to Unassigned to have a poke around the In The Making show by Many Hands Make, a pot luck lunch was being packed up. A long table set up in the middle of the gallery was draped in tablecloths and showed the evidence of a meal shared between friends. I’m so enamoured with how many community events are hosted at Unassigned and how eager the community is to connect with these events. From meals like this potluck, to admin monday which turns the gallery into a co-working space, to fundraisers like Lesbian Mud Wrestling, or the weekly life drawing sessions that are about to start back up. Unassigned is such an important part of the emerging artist community and shows like In The Making prove that even further.
The open call show has been curated by Tash Atkins, who runs Many Hands Make, a creative community who get together monthly to co-work and make art together. The exhibition featured many things beyond the art on the walls, including a pay as you feel second hand art and craft supplies table, whose profits are being donated to gender affirming surgery fundraisers. There were workshops such as found poetry collage and jewellery making, and the opening boasted djs and participatory art projects. This exhibition goes much further than the art on display and it feels so right for it to be housed at Unassigned, whose impact goes far beyond being an art gallery. The open call for the show asked artists to submit unfinished work; pieces part of an incomplete series, work that differs from their usual, basically anything that could be considered to still be “in the making”.
To Be Painted by Gabrielle Delgado is the clearest to me amongst the work on display as one that is truly “in the making”, even down to its title. I finished my lap of the show by looking at this work and it left me wanting more, which is exactly what I expect from an exhibition that requested unfinished work from its contributors. Equally did the title give away how the ceramic sculpture Fracture (Part of development series) by wry.studio fit into the exhibition. The fragments of this fracture feel as if they are slowly exploding outward, like an object smashing in slow motion.
I love wearable art, and I love the embroidered ties, Enhancements 1,2,3,4 & 5, by velvetslipperz that are hanging from the ceiling in the space. I love that these have been removed from being wearables and have instead been made into unreachable objects that hang above your head. My only wish is that these were further away from the wall, more in the middle of the room so you could see them from more angles and read the text sewn into them a bit easier. They create a dialogue over to the other side of the room where Scantily Clad by Steph Watt sits in the window, catching the afternoon sun and refracting it into wobbly colours. I’m so glad this piece was hung in the window. I feel like a cat bathing in a patch of sun when I look at this work. The small clear plastic shapes, with their colourful centres, have been connected together with jump rings, and hold the shape of a bikini. Yet this would certainly be up there in the realms of uncomfortable underwear.
I spotted a few print collages in amongst the submissions, Let’s Divert Society to Stop Life Getting Worse by Katinka Schmid and Before It Was Uncool by Maïténa Etchebarne, both of which I enjoyed. Despite my constant love from print, two of my favourite works in the show were paintings; the quiet slice of life pictured in Untitled by Jon Hewitt which feels tranquil and calm. The cloudy sky settling into a peaceful evening. Next to it is a big painting of a big tree; Underneath Life Lives Millions of Ants by Elspeth Belle Seacroft. The clouds are the same colour as the ground, both washed with the umber colour of Australian dirt. Being unfinished this painting feels raw, and I don’t want it to be finished.
Unfortunately, In the Making is no longer on display, I caught it on its very last day showing. But you can find info on future workshops and events by Many Hands Make on their instagram.