EXHIBITIONS
Above: Gallery of installation photographs of the 2017 exhibition Travellers from Australia. Photos: Shelley Webster, 2017.
Travellers from Australia / 2017
The group exhibition Travellers from Australia was exhibited at the Pailia Ilektriki, Ktima Pafos, Cyprus, 2-15 October, as part of the official program of the Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture. This exhibition was curated by Emeritus Professor Diana Wood Conroy of the University of Wollongong and Dr Craig Barker of the University of Sydney, and included work by Australian contemporary artists Angela Brennan, Brogan Bunt, Rowan Conroy, Amanda Dusting, Hannah Gee, Penny Harris, Guy Hazell, Stephen Ingham, Derek Kreckler, Bob Miller, Jacky Redgate, Geoff Stennett, Lawrence Wallen, Diana Wood Conroy, and 3D reconstruction artist Simon Young of Lithodomos VR. The exhibition was opened on 2 October by His Excellency Alan Sweetman, the Australian High Commissioner to Cyprus.
“Including artists in an excavation was an experiment to widen the parameters of research”
Archaeology and art came together in this exhibition to evoke and marvel at the artistic and cultural lineage of the Paphos Theatre through The Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project, excavated by Australian archaeologists under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus for over two decades. This exhibition represents Australian art and archaeological research in the Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture program.
The exhibition participants are experienced archaeologists and highly regarded artists associated with universities in Australia who have worked on the theatre site over years. The exhibition includes compelling visual documentation of finds and architecture, as well as imaginative photography, animation, painting, drawing, ceramics, bronze sculpture, tapestry and sound, and a VR reconstruction of the theatre. A selection of works from Travellers and full artist profiles can be seen here on this website under the Artists, Exhibitions, and Projects tabs.
Australian archaeologists from the University of Sydney have been working in Paphos since 1995, excavating the site of the ancient theatre and its surrounding precinct. Including artists in the team at the beginning of the excavations was an experiment to widen the spectrum of research for project director and founder Professor J. Richard Green. The Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project has had a long tradition of encouraging visual and performing artists (and arts students) to seek creative inspiration from the site, from the natural beauty of Cyprus and from the very process of archaeology. This exhibition tracks a history of engagement by contemporary Australian artists with the archaeology of Cyprus.
READ MORE:
Read more about the exhibition in the article ‘Travellers to Cyprus, Art from Australia’ in MUSE magazine (Issue 18, October 2017, pp.10-13)
Read more about the relationship between artists and archaeologists at the Paphos Theatre site in The Conversation, ‘Old sites, new visions: art and archaeology collide in Cyprus’ (9 October, 2017)