This month is Brisbane Festival month.
So this week, I headed down to Metro Arts to check out a wholly bike-inspired, free art exhibition called The Mechanics of Adaptation.
The exhibition was well laid out and had a variety of materials, forms, and mediums across two galleries. Each work was given sufficient space so viewers could walk around the installations and see them from different angles.
I decided to wander through the show first to get a sense of the artworks. It was interesting to see the different techniques used to fuse, fix and set each of the works together. It felt like these were not super technical pieces, which made them more relatable because it felt like anyone could have a go constructing some of these works.
After my initial look around, I grabbed a handout of the exhibition (see details below) which explained a little more of the context behind the exhibition.
The handout and the necessary artist’s name/title/year posted on the walls next to exhibits were the only pieces of info provided at the exhibition.
When I got home and looked for more online, there were heaps of other interesting info about this project! Why wasn’t this extra info promoted at the exhibition?
For example, this project had been awarded a $35,365 arts fund.
And the passing mention in the exhibition handout about the ‘collaboration’ was actually a vital part of the whole artistic process and overall project.
The collaboration was the part I found most interesting about this whole project, yet at the exhibition, there was very little info about it.
Online, I found a catalog that gave more details about the project (see below).
This catalog outlines the background and details the collaboration with Traction and Sycamore, which I think is where the real art story is at – see here!
Having established artists running a series of workshops with youths at risk (Traction) and young people living with Autism (Sycamore) to teach artistic and technical using bikes is a brilliant idea – and I love that the final works were being exhibited as part of the Brisbane Arts Festival.
As a visitor to this exhibition, I felt this key aspect of the project was missing.
I would have loved to have seen better recognition/focus in the exhibition about the involvement of the youth groups.
Even so, it was awesome to see more bike art being supported and showcased.
If you are in Brisbane and have the interest -consider popping in and checking it out!
More bike projects and art exhibitions like this one, please!
Project Background
Michael Deucamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1931) was one of the first ready-made sculptures which simply placed a bicycle wheel upside down on a stool.
Deucamp’s artwork changed the course of contemporary art by elevating ordinary objects to the status of art. In 2021, after 10 successful years and four million trips, the Brisbane CityCycle program is ending.
With access to decommissioned bicycles provided by JDDecaux, Metro Arts commission and five local artists to produce new work inspired by these now-defunct bicycles.
Over a series of workshops, with students from the Sycamore School (a school of young people living with Autism) and facilitated by Traction (a community organization providing bicycle mechanic training for youths in need), the artists have produced works that expressed their existing practices and inspired by this context and the materials.
This work captures the emerging world of ever-accumulating industrially produced items and the potential for found materials to be incorporated into artworks whilst also inviting a playful attitude into the rarefied context of art galleries.
Today, bicycles also represent the urgency of the need for environmental awareness and sustainability.
Within this context, the artists’ use of the decommission City Cycle bicycles reflects the opportunity for artistic experimentation that connects histories of art to environmental sustainability.
List of works
Window Gallery
Alisha Manning Bike Spin (HD video, 3 mins 2021)
Gallery One
(Clockwise from entrance left)
Susan Hawkins Joining Multiples (CityCyle wheel rims and handlebars, dimensions variable 2021)
Sarah Poulgrain A Set of New Skills: Aluminum Casting (handlebar and bike seat posts, plaster, towel and chain from studio, dimensions variable, 2021)
Ross Manning Orange Reflector Feild (CityCycle reflectors, 185cm x 125cm, 2021). Ross Manning is representing Miliani Gallery, Brisbane.
Alisha Manning Bike Pull (2-channel HD video, 9mins 42 sec, 2021).
Gallery Two
Kinly Grey Wheel (CityCycle LED modules and wheel rim, haze, dimension variable, 2021).
All images (unless otherwise attributed) and parts of this text are sourced from Metro Arts Brisbane.