Collective Unease is an exhibition of new commissions by the three artists, showing at the University of Melbourne’s Old Quad—a gallery space located in an original university building, constructed in 1853. The artists responded to the University collection—which contains objects and artefacts from the university’s history, art and culture, sport and medicine—drawing out the complexity of the institutional history. Here, the artists talk together about why and how they work with collections, what they’ve created for Collective Unease, and what it means to keep your knife sharp when carving out paths in spaces never meant for you.
LISA HILLI
I started working with collections accidentally. I didn’t even know collections existed until 2010. I was so naïve, and that just speaks volumes about who collections are for. This auntie from Bougainville told me, “Oh, you should go to Sydney! There are these things in the museum and there’s this woman there called Taloi Havini.” A Pasifika artist, Taloi worked at the Australian Museum years ago.
[I went to the Australian Museum and] I looked at their three levels of storage, and it blew my mind.
