The Politics of Snails

18 November - 10 December 2023

Sarah Aiken | Tay Haggarty | Phoebe Kelly | David M Thomas

The Politics of Snails is a group project curated by IN | ARI with works that speak to connection, collaboration, and/or challenge the idea of singular authorship. The artists in this exhibition merge and combine methods of making and practice that question social engagement, community, and process by way of sculpture, painting, sound, video, and movement practice. Together, the artists have become pen pals. Here, they have written a chain of letters where the ‘snail’ has become a central motif and conceptual marker to consider modes of engagement. Individually, their works carve out different forms of relationships and associations working with personal networks and broader communities. 

Sarah Aiken explores the body as an assemblage and unexpected relations by collaging movement with video, the corporeal and the digital. Tay Haggarty proposes sculpture as a catalyst for connection, talking to queerness and allyship. Phoebe Kelly’s glass tiles are an act of collaboration and reciprocity, making physical memories of gestures in a community-centred studio process. David M Thomas has a long history of working collaboratively, posing ways to consider social connectivity and disrupting the primacy of singular authorship.

EXHIBITION TEXT By Madeline Brewer

THE LETTERS The Politics of Snails

A copy of the letters in newspaper format is available to order and will be posted to you. Please email in.artistruninitiative@gmail.com for details.

Images by Warwick Gow

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This initiative is supported through the Creative Industries Investment Program (CIIP) and is jointly funded by ArtsCoast through Sunshine Coast Council’s Arts and Heritage Levy and the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) in partnership with the Queensland Government.

For more information about IN | artist run initiative visit www.in-ari.com.au or stay connected to our latest news on Instagram via @in_ari.