Future Traditions: Displaying Hope (Install)

Displaying Hope

Display is the art of curating pasts, presents and futures: using matter to express experiences, memories and values. The stuff of mantles, wallpapers and framed displays conveys our hope-filled aspirations for our future selves, our children and their children. There is potential in the ways we meaningfully bring these things together, to share new directions based upon what we have learned (and unlearned) from the past. Folk art is one mode of transforming found objects - from gumnuts to shells - into expressions that display hope. Folk art is a mode of translation, from stories to material objects, with a focus upon everyday and commonly shared events such as births, deaths, marriages, homes and the lived experiences of family histories.