Everyday Rebellions 
Curated by Emily Cormack 

DANICA CHAPPELL (MELB) JOAN JONAS (USA), KITTY KRAUS (DE), DANE MITCHELL (NZ), VIRGINIA OVERELL (MELB), DANAE VALENZA AND SIMON MCGUINNESS (MELB). CURATED BY EMILY CORMACK

Everyday Rebellions presented work by six artists who investigate the inherent rebellion in their chosen media. Drawing on Newton’s ‘Laws of Motion’, the exhibition highlights the agitated, activated and constantly moving nature of all things.

Whilst this movement is mostly invisible, it is always rebellious, powered by its own volition and abiding by its own particular code of behaviour. Everyday Rebellions exemplified this willfulness, bringing together artists who attempt to control and manipulate the energy and activity of their unruly media.

Focusing on the limits of their control Everyday Rebellions explored the innate alchemical and physical dynamics that occur when active materials are contained, moulded, corralled, stilled or released. All of the works are situated at the maximum point of exertion, highlighting the pressure exerted by artists on their materials and charting the seepage and resistance, as well as the release and collapse that occurs as artists wrestle reactions into shapes and spillage into form.

Everyday Rebellions revealed how it is only when we attempt to restrain or pause the errant energy in our materials that we become aware of its true character. Frozen ice will melt despite our urgings; light sensitive paper will always colour under daylight, and copper sulfide will taint with its decolourising stain.

Everyday Rebellions covered a range of responses to the innate activity of matter. Dane Mitchell paused the photographic process by presenting a suite of unfixed photographs that must be presented under red safe lights, whereas Kitty Kraus enable entropy through allowing a block of ice and ink to melt onto the floor. Virginia Overell’s works contaminated quietly, with copper sulphide staining fabric slowly and sea salt corroding across the gallery spaces.

Everyday Rebellions also featured Joan Jonas’ seminal 1972 video work Vertical Roll which channels the expressive rebellion of television’s vertical hold function as a means to frustrate and deconstruct representations of female identity.