‘Response’ is a collaboration between the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens and the University of Newcastle’s staff, students and alumni from creative arts in which they respond to the natural environment of the HRBG. The exhibition creates an evocative space for creative freedom in concert with a respectful engagement with the sub-tropical rainforest area in the gardens and provides a new interpretation for visitors.

Sculpture has long held a dialogue with spaces – architectural and natural. ‘Response’ offers participating artists the opportunity to embed an artwork in an important regional environment. The artists chosen for this project have all worked with sculptural form as a non-invasive practice that respects the landscape in which it is sited. The works are placed without machinery, or other interventions that may harm the environment. Many of these works are of an ephemeral nature, with an intended gentle deterioration of the work over the duration of the exhibition.

Artists include Stela Brix, Andy Devine, Megan McCarthy, Michael Garth, Louisa Magrics, Brett McMahon, Kris Smith, Braddon Snape, Andrew Styan, Peter Tilley, Annika Thurbon, and Gavin Vitullo.
Response is a partnership between the University Gallery at the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens, and runs from 22 June until 4 August 2019 at the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens.
Hunter Region Botanic Gardens
2100 Pacific Highway
Heatherbrae 2324
W www.huntergardens.org.au
OPENS 9 - 4 PM DAILY

SCHOOL OF CREATIVE INDUSTRIES 
BACHELOR OF FINE ART HONOURS 2019
12 June to 6 July 2019
​Join artists Michelle Wellham and Lolita Manukian for the exhibition launch at the University Gallery
Friday 14 June from 6pm 
Guest Speaker: Laureate Professor Roger Smith 

​SCATTERED 
LOLITA MANUKIAN
The Armenian Genocide in 1915 forever changed Armenian history and the landscape of migration in the twentieth century. 104 years later issues of displacement and trauma still bind Armenians from all over the world through a thread of collective memory and the eternal quest for identity and belonging. Scattered is an installation that explores Armenian symbolism to tell a narrative of journey and diversity whilst portraying the universal struggle of acknowledging the past.

​ABOVE IMAGE: Lolita Manukian, Scattered 2019 (detail), white earthenware paper clay

​FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING
MICHELLE WELLHAM
Through a series of figurative ceramic sculptures, Michelle Wellham's research considers that violence of a domestic nature is closely connected with the way that gender is constructed and performed. It uses theatrical tableaux to contrast tropes of masculinity with feminine forms presented as subordinate in order to present a non-verbal testimony of abusive experience.
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ABOVE IMAGE: Michelle Wellham, Figuratively Speaking 2019 (detail), mixed media