Into My Arms

Past Exhibition
11 May - 7 July 2018
The artist and her mother stand in a lounge room flanked by pot plants, holding their arms in an identical outstretched pose. Video still by Eugene Choi.
The artist and her mother stand in a lounge room flanked by pot plants, holding their arms in an identical outstretched pose. Video still by Eugene Choi.

Uncover the complexities and micropolitics of a seemingly simple act – the embrace – in the exhibition and live performance program Into My Arms.

When

11 May to 7 July 2018

Access

The action of embracing is twofold; to draw somebody or something near, and to accept an idea or change. But when expanded beyond a physical moment into familial relationships, cultural lineages, digital revelations and performative gestures, a new kind of intimacy evolves.

Into My Arms features a diverse range of local and national artists working across installation, performance, text and sound. Together, they present a range of recent work alongside a series of new commissions: from an intimate reading room to a 12-month online Periscope performance, installation, music video, large-scale drawing, archive-based performance, and an investigation into rituals of physical and emotional healing.

Curated by Toby Chapman and Frances Barrett, Into My Arms provokes the question: in a time of social and political precarity, how can an ‘embrace’ function as a form of resilience and care?

Feature Image: Eugene Choi, My mother only speaks Shanghainese when she talks to her brother on the phone (these plants are a gift for her) (still) (2017), 2-channel video installation, galvanised steel pipe, cast steel clamps, pinewood, various plants. Courtesy the artist.

  • A dark room is lit only by a redneon light just visible through a hole in plaster walls, on the wall hand-written is the text
  • A still from a video shows the shape of a human face, made up of the blue, green and white swirls of planet earth when viewed from space.
  • A large great canvas with multicoloured geometric line drawings done in oil pastel, hangs on a grey wall.
  • A series of eight collages hang in two rows on a piece of dirty white fabric.
  • A wide shot of the ACE main gallery shows a dark green wall with 14 photographs on it, and a tv screen in the foreground, with a row of house plants lined up behind it.
  • A widest of the ACE main gallery shows a curved seat in front of a tv screen with a woman's face and statistics and graphs over top of it, in the background a green wall with artwork hanging on it is visible.
  • Two digital screens sit side by side, on the left screen a person with short hair looks sad, on the right screen a woman floats in water.
  • Two woman stand side by side with their arms lifted in the same way.
A dark room is lit only by a redneon light just visible through a hole in plaster walls, on the wall hand-written is the text "I've only ever dreamt of this"

Guest Curator

Frances Barrett, Toby Chapman

Lead Artists

Amira.h. (VIC), Katherine Botten (VIC), Eugene Choi (NSW), Matt Huppatz (SA), Lonelyspeck (SA), Grace Marlow (SA), Sione Monu (NZ), Kate Power and Susie Fraser (SA), Athena Thebus (NSW)

ACE tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka panpapanpalyarninthi (inparrinthi). Kaurna miyurna yaitya mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlu tampnthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and pays respect to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.