By guest contributor and graduate of architecture Nikita Bhopti
If we were to leave an object behind for our loved ones, what would it look like? What is its significance? Does it tell us anything about what happened in that time, or carry a certain meaning about what is to come? Curated by Marsha Golemac for NGV Melbourne Design Week, Future Inheritance invited 20 multidisciplinary artists to ‘consider how, and why, objects carry meaning’. With each artist asked to ‘leave behind’ one object for the next generation, the exhibit is a collective archive of our past and present, with several objects carrying a beacon of hope for future generations.
Sitting on individual white plinths, the objects are arranged like soldiers on either side of the gallery space – both confronting and present. A ceramic vessel sits to the front left of the exhibition, greeting you as you arrive. Titled ‘Worship Me’, artist Nicholas Smith engrains the intersection of his Catholic upbringing and queer identity into this object. Through hand-building this vessel, Smith sculpts in devotional images ranging from medieval to 17th century western paintings, depicting iterations of the Man of Sorrows. Focusing on the ‘homoerotic undertones of this genre’, the tension of queer identity in the catholic realm is brought to the forefront. Smith’s ‘repetitious act of rubbing fingers’ against the vessel’s surface, the bulging forms of the vessel itself and the skin-like finish, complete with what reads like bruising, carries a sense of the grappling emotions experienced between the catholic and queer community.
Across the gallery, self-taught jeweller Seb Brown puts forward a small totemic structure, responding more directly to the idea of inheritance. Like many pieces of jewellery, there is a certain preciousness around Brown’s object. With the passing of his grandmother, Brown, being a male, wasn’t offered any of her jewellery as inheritance. His object for Future Inheritance takes jewellery that has been thrifted, and given to him by his aunt, and turns them into what may be his own heirloom, passed down to both males and females in his family to come.
In a year where the world saw a collective crisis, the object left behind by Fatemeh Boroujeni reminds us of Australia’s bushfires; it was the event that fronted the catastrophic year for those living down under. Titled ‘Demeter’, Boroujeni’s crisp black conical object uses copper, wood and brush bristles to form an ornate vessel. While beautiful on the outside, the contents ‘reflects diminished resources’ and ‘hope for generations to follow’. Inside is a handful of seeds from endangered west Australian native plants, and a note written by Boroujeni, carrying the idea that ‘one might plant these seeds today, for tomorrow’s future’.
Also carrying a hope for tomorrow’s future, Wanda Gillespie’s object titled ‘A Counting Frame for Future Economies’ aspires to a new method of counting. Gillespie asks us, what do we value and how do we measure it? Her abacus is a symbol for humanity’s post-covid value systems, and explores the ‘need to build a global sustainable economy that steers away from the current limited paradigm of growth’. Without change to our economic systems, Gillespie fears our future generations will be robbed of their inheritance.
Claiming ‘it has never been more important to record and reflect upon the events of our present lives’, glass-artist Jessica Murtagh looks at museums as the true keepers of past events. With news cycles quickly moving on from current events, Murtagh asks us, how do we document ‘snippets of what daily life held’ and allow for ‘future generations to unearth to tell our stories’?
Adopting ancient athenian amphoras, the illustrations Mutagh embosses onto the vessel depict a scene of people queuing outside Centrelink, masked up and patrolled by officers. Signs remind us that we’re all in this together, and to remain 1.5m apart are plastered behind slouched figures, mundane and tapping away at their iphones.
While many pieces in Future Inheritance looked to the future, prompting change and remedy to the current world, a few artists looked back at their childhood. ‘Jumbo Knuckle Stack No. 02’ is Minaal Lawn’s “reminder to interact, question, and to play”. When thinking about what she would leave her children, Lawn deems the act of play ‘imperative’. Lawn’s objects are oversized, and encourage interaction and for the mind to wander.
Ben Sheers’ object titled ‘A Form of Fine Balance’ takes inspiration from his son’s soft toy elephant. It sits uncomfortably balanced on the plinth, and much like an elephant, appears ‘solid and unsteady’. Referencing the hand-crafted timber painted toys that Sheers grew up with, the black timber object has the ‘fine physicality of elephants – its long trunk and large ears’. Through teaching his children to use scissors, Sheers takes inspiration from small cut paper collages, and the various shapes that come from the simple activity. Like much of Sheers’ work, this object explores unique shapes and forms, ones that resemble a paper-cutting of an elephant.
The collection of objects that fill the Future Inheritance exhibit put forward a truly unique mix of ideas. Some objects ask us difficult questions about identity and place. Some are reminders of what’s important. Some are precious heirlooms. Some prompt action. They are not only an archive of the year we’ve had, but a documentation of what life has been up till today, covering moments big and small. When looking at the objects as a collection, they comprise an army of soldiers, carrying forward messages of hope and action for future generations.
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Wow! Magnificent! These collections of arts and heirlooms are really breath taking! Thanks for sharing this post despc! These collections should be well protected and stored correctly for future generations .