WORKSHOP // Bone Drift | Exploring bone china making and (dis)ability

Helen Pynor (Artist) & Lizzie Crouch (Creative Producer) In collaboration with ISEA2024 – The 29th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF ELECTRONIC ART

ABOUT:

Join Artist and Researcher Helen Pynor and Creative Producer Lizzie Crouch for three experiential workshops with an associated exhibition opportunity. The workshops are sequential and designed such that participants attend all three sessions. All three workshops over two weekends and participation in the exhibition are included in the ticket price.

Through hands-on experiences, the workshops will explore the materiality of actual bone, its use in bone china making, and the fluid identities of temporary and/or hidden disabilities and mobility disabilities.

Drawing on bone china technologies, metal artefacts, and wax casting and forming, participants will reflect on their own body and experiences. Over the course of the three workshops participants will create a series of personal objects.

These objects will form an artwork to be exhibited in artisan's Machinery Street Gallery space - that represents a collective material exploration of (dis)ability identity – now, in the past or into the future. These outcomes promise to create a fascinating installation at the intersection of art and science. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, in collaboration with ISEA2024 and QUT.

Whilst this workshop will explore mobility disability - either short lived or on-going, past or present - there is no requirement that workshop participants have lived experiences of disability. The workshop welcomes makers, those with lived experiences of disability, ISEA attendees, and anyone else with an interest in the subject matter. It is envisaged that participants will share a wide variety of lived experiences and skills over the course of the workshop.

Workshop dates:

• Saturday 22 June 10am-1pm
• Sunday 23 June 10am-1pm
• Saturday 29 June 10am-1pm

What to bring:

• Clothes that can get dirty, or an apron
• Enclosed shoes

What's included:

• All materials
• All kiln firings
• Your workshop outcomes featured in an artisan exhibition
• Light refreshments

Image credit:

Habitation, 2021, Helen Pynor. Unglazed bone china (made from the artist's bone removed during surgery, supplemented by animal bone), unglazed earthenware, felt, coral, metal, acrylic, archival pigment prints (drawn from the artist’s own archive of CT and X-Ray scans), lightboxes. Dimensions variable. Photo: Helen Pynor. Image courtesy of the artist. An Experimenta Commission. Habitation has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and City of Joondalup, Western Australia.