4 July -
1 August 2026
Gertrude Glasshouse
44 Glasshouse Road, CollingwoodOpening event:
Friday 3 July, 6–8pm
A force feeder is a mechanical device used in tablet compression machines, more commonly known as a pill press. Unlike gravity feeding, force feeding uses rotating paddles to ensure powder flows evenly and precisely into the machine’s compression zone.
The regulatory landscape governing manufacturing equipment bears a surreptitious shadow – a network of distributed, largely unseen DIY producers working with everyday materials and accessible, commodified technology to bypass the systems designed to suppress them. The popularisation of distributed manufacturing models has influenced virtually every aspect of the production sector, including the contemporary artist.
Force Feeder is an installation of sculpture and paintings by Jordan Halsall, assembled into something like a clandestine laboratory. Made using utilitarian objects and methods of fabrication, outsourced production and traditional oil painting, the artworks respond to Halsall’s ongoing research into decentralised production paradigms and their at once nefarious and transformative potentialities.
Jordan Halsall is an artist based in Naarm Melbourne. His research is centred on dissonant ideologies, disruptive practices and technological change, journeying through optimisation, growth and notions of exit. Halsall’s artworks are shaped by an interest in bridging connections between the contemporary artist, prosumer and built environment.
Halsall co-directed the gallery Savage Garden and has served on the boards of Gertrude and TCB Art Inc. Selected solo and two-person exhibitions include Millenial Kennels, with Steven J Hutton, HAIR ARI, Naarm Melbourne, 2026; Anthem, CACHE, Naarm Melbourne, 2025; Terrarium, Neo Gracie, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 2023; Flatways, ReadingRoom, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; Walkaway, Haydens, Naarm Melbourne, 2021; Fertilizer, Conners Conners, Naarm Melbourne, 2020; and Task Executor, Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) Science Gallery, Naarm Melbourne, 2020. Halsall completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2018 and Honours at Monash University in 2019 before completing a Master of Architecture in 2023.