Danger: Research in Progress


Sun Woong Bang,  Unexpected Linkage, 2015

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Kaleide Theatre, RMIT University

Building 8, 360 Swanston St
Melbourne 3000

5 September
4.30pm

Danger: Research In Progress is a fast paced event of rapid fire presentations where artists from the field of contemporary jewellery and object making will present their work in relation to the theme of practice as research. Sixteen speakers will each deliver a three minute talk, supported by three slides.
This seminar will give insight into different aspects of practice, be it thinking, doing, experiencing, or combinations of these, through a sharing of words and images. Artists will reveal their take on practice as research exposing strategies informed by materialisms and geometry, the intimate, personal and perhaps wearable, the interactive, experiential, philosophical and contingent.

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Artists Ruby Aitchison, Amenda Lo, Nicole Polentas, Helen Dilkes, Linda Hughes, Bin Dixon-Ward, Robyn Hosking, Sun-Woong Bang, Wendy Korol, Yu-Fang Chi, Tassia Joannides, Pennie Jagiello, Renée Ugazio, Djurdjica Kesic, Mary Hackett, Natasha Avila

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Linda Hughes, Three Sisters, 2015, laminate, wood, steel

Robyn Hosking, A Canberra Chorus Line, 2013, 3D cartoon, stoneware slip, decals, lustres and mixed media

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About the Artists

Ruby Aitchison lives in Melbourne, Australia, and is currently undergoing a Masters of Fine Art at RMIT. Ruby is interested in the active performance of organic matter when juxtaposed with metal. Her process-based practice initiates a dialogue between materials, and her small objects are a tangible description of the vitality and flux that occurs during the making.
Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally, participating in the Marzee International Graduate Show 2012, Netherlands, and Talente 2013, Munich. More recently she was a selected finalist for ‘Fresh!’ 2014, where she received the Future Leaders award.
rubyaitchison.com


Amenda Lo was born in Hong Kong but has lived in New Zealand for many years. Her multicultural background gives her a lot of inspiration which informs her broader art practice and her current research for Masters Degree. She likes using food as a theme to apply on her works because it is a good subject for opening up conversations all over the world.
Amenda’s expansive practice includes both objects and jewellery; some are quite sculptural and some are small and intricate.


Nicole Polentas was born in Melbourne in 1984 to migrants from the island of Crete. Her Cretan heritage continues to inform her arts practice. She has completed a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art, a Masters of Fine Art and is currently completing a PhD at RMIT University. She has successfully exhibited in a variety of group shows both nationally and internationally. Nicole has held two major solo shows in the United States and Greece.


Helen Dilkes is an artist, and current PhD candidate, working with the making of a range of small-scale objects and installations, some of which speculate on wearability. With a keen interest in duration, from her past experience in music performance and soundscape research, her current art practice and research explores what it is to make things such as surfaces and forms from stuff and put them into others’ worlds, in an art context. Helen brings the ephemeral of duration, via philosophies and non-Euclidean geometries, into the so-called concrete of substance; and investigates ways of thinking/experiencing continuum – between person and object, virtual and real, for example.


Linda Hughes’ practice-based research investigates contemporary jewellery drawn from the use of motifs in Western paintings. The artwork examines the potential of the motif, to speak aesthetically of a specific condition, or attribute, or characteristic or occurrence in the source material. It enquires into how these occurrences can be translated into another material form, which is the jewellery object. The focus is on the implied system of signification affecting the cultural context of the composition in the selected paintings.


Bin Dixon-Ward is a graduate of RMIT, Bin has exhibited in Europe and North America and is the recipient of several awards for her jewellery. Recent exhibitions include, Melbourne Now, NGV, Melbourne, The Itami Contemporary Jewellery Exhibition, Japan, Making It Real, OCAD University, Toronto 2013, New Edition, 2013, Gallery Funaki, 2013, Fresh, 2012 Craft Victoria. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and Musee des Artes Decoritifs, Paris. Bin primarily uses CAD and 3d Printing to make her jewellery.
bindixon-ward.com


Robyn Hosking is completing a MA at RMIT. Robyn has been selected for the Siemens Award RMIT, the ICMEA Emerging Artists Award Fuping, Flinders Lane Gallery’s Exploration 11, the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award and the Fresh Awards at which she won two awards. She was also short listed for the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award.
Hosking has held solo exhibitions at C3 Gallery, the Sofitel Melbourne and at Anita Traverso Gallery.
Her work was selected to be part of Lark Books 500 Prints on Clay and has been reviewed on artblart.com.
robynhosking.com


Sun-Woon Bang was born in Seoul (1976), Korea. He migrated to Australia in 2001. Following his graduation from TAFE SA in 2005, Sun built up various artistic careers including artist residency in Liverpool UK, internship programs at the JamFactory Craft in Adelaide, a mentorship program selected by Optus. Recently his PhD research was accepted to present at the Image Conference in Berlin 2014. Sun’s ongoing research topic is the cultural interactions between ancient Koreans, Scythians and Celts. This has resulted in the production of ‘Unexpected Linkage’, a series of convertible robot figure objects to wearable jewellery. Sun hopes to indulge and expand of entanglement of cultural interactions in making of jewellery & small objects.
sunwoongbangjewellery.com


Wendy Korol is a final year MFA by Research candidate at RMIT. She works with metal foil and mesh, vitreous enamel and ceramic material to make small non-functional objects, which she shapes by hand. Her award winning work is an intuitive, haptic response to materiality. Wendy has exhibited nationally and internationally.


Yu-Fang, CHI completed her Bachelor and Master degree in Taiwan. She is a current PhD candidate within the School of Art at RMIT. Her research project investigates the concept of femininity in jewellery and objects and its cultural connotations. Yu-Fang introspects the processes of creation and the position of female body. Her practice involves repetitive fibre-related techniques which can be connected to traditional domestic art processes.
Yu Fang regularly exhibits her work in Australia and internationally in Poland, Germany, Korea, Japan and Estonia...etc. She has been awarded various grants and her work is held in both public and private collections.
yufangchi.com


Tassia Joannides is a Melbourne based inter-disciplinary artist whose works incorporate photography, sculpture and performative outcomes. Completing her Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours from Monash University in 2004, she then moved to South Australia where she worked at JamFactory Contemporary Craft & Design. Currently she is completing her PhD research project ‘Material Bodies and the Complications of Desire’ at RMIT, focusing around the notion of the Material Body, exploring both the body as a material, and materials that display anthropomorphic qualities. Her project seeks to extend thinking around contemporary investigations of the body, materials, gender, sexuality, feminism and film theory.


Pennie Jagiello is a current final year candidate in the Masters of Fine Art practice based research at RMIT following a Bachelor of Fine Art Sculpture at VCA in 1995. She is currently part of a residency in the Pilbara with FORM Gallery, which will see her research expand across three expeditions as part of an extensive project that will tour across Australia in 2015-2016. Pennie is currently represented by 6 galleries, held numerous solo and group exhibitions around Australia. In 2004 Pennie was the recipient of the Australia Council Crafts Mentorship, and has been a selected entrant in various jewellery award exhibitions. She has run workshops throughout Australia during her practice, and represented Australia at the Waste to Wealth Festival in Kuwait City in 2013.
penniejagiello.com


Renée Ugazio is a Melbourne-based gold and silversmithing (G&S) geek, producing jewellery since 1998 and exhibiting locally and internationally. ‘Shifting Sites’, her current Art PhD at RMIT University, manifests as jewellery, installation, performance and text based artwork.
Renée is also engaged in teaching, public speaking and publishing papers on her practice, as well as on other provocations. In general however, you might find her filing lamp posts or filming a drill in an attempt to explore the relationships that occur as a result of reconsidering jewellery as a itinerant and expanding practice.


Djurdjica Kesic has completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Interior Design at RMIT University in 1999. In 2007 she completed an Advanced Diploma of Engineering Technology and Metalsmithing (Jewellery) at Box Hill Institute. The same year Djurdjica was a finalist for the Filippo Raphael Fresh! Award at Craft Victoria. Solo exhibitions: 'Nomad' at Pieces of Eight Gallery in 2009 and travelled to Metalab Gallery in Sydney in 2010. Solo exhibition ‘Meanders’ at Gaffa Gallery, Sydney in 2013. Selected group exhibitions: 'Wood' Velvet da Vinci Gallery, San Francisco, 2012 and 'Breathe Into' COTA Gallery, Sydney and Jam Factory, Adelaide, 2013.
djurdjicakesic.com


Mary Hackett is a current Fine Art PhD candidate at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where she is investigating the forces involved in blacksmithing processes through sculptural practices. Hackett completed a Master of Fine Art with distinction in 2011, was granted a Master of Fine Art Graduate Award and placed on the Vice-Chancellor’s List for Academic Excellence in that year. She is a founder and the coordinator of Blacksmith Doris, a blacksmithing group for women, and teaches silversmithing at Melbourne Polytechnic. In 2014 Hackett presented Gravity Wins at the The Art of Research 2014 Helsinki conference.


Natasha Avila is a Melbourne artist/jeweller who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Object Based Practice (Gold & Silversmithing) with Distinction from RMIT University in 2013. She is currently undertaking a Masters of Fine Art, Gold & Silversmithing. Avila has participated in group shows nationally and internationally, including The Mary & Lou Senini Student Art Award, The 48th International Exhibition of Japan Enamelling Artist Association at Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, Japan and The Annual Marzee International Graduate show, Netherlands. Avila is represented by Pieces of Eight Gallery. 
natashaavila.com.au