Propositions

Bridie Lunney and Torie Nimmervoll

During February of 2013 Gertrude Contemporary’s Front Gallery was transformed into an activated, evolving performance space. In Gertrude Contemporary’s window-like front room collaborating artists Bridie Lunney and Torie Nimmervoll investigated the ways that architectural spaces and forms can mimic psychological states of being.

Propositions was a site responsive sculptural collaboration that accumulated gradually over the exhibition’s duration. The sculptural objects, which drew on display props and everyday urban architecture, were arranged in relation to six durational performances enacted by Torie Nimervoll over the course of the exhibition.

During the up to 7-hour performances Nimmervoll was variously suspended above head height, cast up against the window and balanced on props. She also slept in the gallery, slumped over objects and was suspended in a harness as though caught mid fall. Nimmervoll’s actions were both small rebellions against the prescribed choreography of our urban environment, as well as being physical metaphors or mimicry of internal psychological spaces.

As Bridie Lunney states; “In Propositions, it is not the gestures of resistance, but the gestures of stillness that is the staring point for my sculptural forms.” The forms left empty between performances have the body implicitly embedded in them creating a palpable presence of an absence, and drawing the viewer’s attention to their own body in relation to space and time.

Bridie Lunney’s prior exhibitions include Space, Pieces of WestSpace/Pieces of Eight; Place of Assembly as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival; The ceiling has lost it’s solidity, Manysquaremetres in 2012; A Condition of Change, Sarah Scout; Suspension Test, Conical in 2011; Non-Negotiable, Project Space, 2010 and Once more with Feeling, Margaret Lawrence Gallery 2009.

Torie Nimmervoll’s practice revolves around the body’s relationship to space and the objects within it often using her own body for exploration. In this instance Nimmervoll considered herself as a prop, rather than a body in performance. Prior works include The ceiling has lost it’s solidity, Manysquaremetres 2012; her collaborative project with artist Jason Maling Prismatic Audit, Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne Central and City Village 2010-2012 and Nimmervoll’s solo series Objecthood Seventh Gallery, Kings ARI and West Space 2009-2010. 

As part of this exhibition, performances took place on the following dates:

Friday 8th Feb, 6 - 8pm; during the exhibition opening.

Saturday 9th February, 11am - 4:30pm

Saturday 16th February, 11am - 4:30pm

Saturday 23rd February, 11am - 4:30pm

Saturday 2nd March, 11am - 4:30pm

Friday 8th March, overnight performance. Approx. 9pm Fri - 7am Sat.