The Curiosities

Mailbox Art Space

Curated by Glenn Barkley

6-31 August 2019

Curatorial blurb:

The Curiosities are a refined, crafted object often made from common materials like stone or shell encased within elaborate OTT crafted mounts, hinges, handles and decoration. They were a key component in the European Wunderkammer but are rare in the present. Their precious metal and bejewelled mounts were often melted down for the monetary value and they were often faked, or their parts were incorporated into ever more elaborate, and therefore, expensive tableaus. The Curiosities where a physical exemplar of the European Colonial project - by taming the world and owning it in a microcosm, making it an object of contemplation to be coveted, denoted ownership of the whole world.

The Curiosities brings together a group of artists to create new artworks that reconsider the beauty, context, and history of the original objects and reconsider what a contemporary curiosity may be.

David Ray, Sassy Park, Ema Shin

Patsy Hely

My most favourite most curious of objects, Janice Ng's Bottle With Ears.