Work 1: 'Polygraph mash'; Work 2: 'Gulag Archipelago'

TY - ADVS

T1 - Work 1: 'Polygraph mash'; Work 2: 'Gulag Archipelago'

A2 - Floyd, Emily

N1 - "Polygraph mash': wood block prints on Velin Arches paper, plywood plinth. 'Gulag Archipelago': wood, dye, steel fixtures." Work 1: wood block prints on Velin Arches paper, plywood plinth. Work 2: wood, dye, steel fixtures. Curated by Rachel Kent. Exhibition reviewed by Christopher Allen, 'MCA's Telling Tales: Kerry Tribe; Emily Floyd; Angelica Mesiti', The Australian, 6 August 2016; Gina Fairley, 'Woo me and wonder me with a story', ArtsHub, 4 June 2016; John McDonald, 'Visual art: Telling tales at the MCA', Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 2016 Two major new artworks were produced for the exhibition Telling Tales: Excursions in Narrative Form at the Museum of Contemporary Art: Australia. The works comprised a large-scale sculptural installation titled 'Gulag Archipelago' and a suite of works on paper titled 'Polygraphmash'. In addition Emily Floyd devised a series of artist-lead public programmes centered on the artworks. These publicly engaged projects facilitated storytelling and hands on learning within the context of MCA’s Winter Events Programme. The projects contributed to the associated research fields of sculpture, printmaking, socially engaged art and museum-based education. The artworks proposed a lateral connection between Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s seminal text 'The Gulag Archipelago' and Australia’s offshore detention system. In keeping with the overall theme of the MCA exhibition, innovation was displayed through highlighting suppressed contemporary narratives and experimentation with a variety of formats for story telling. The project supported an extended period of research in which the artist constructed a letterpress of typographical printmaking blocks and sculptural motifs based on histories of Soviet Graphic Design. The artist employed a Russian language specialist to translate media accounts describing Australia’s detention system as a “Gulag Archipelago,” transcripts were translated from English to Cyrillic type and rendered using the letterpress. Translation formed the basis for an innovative series of accessible, artist-led public programmes; MCA educators then extended the event template to their specialized programmes for teen and children’s audiences.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

M3 - Commissioned or Visual Artwork

PB - Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

CY - Sydney, NSW, Australia

T2 - Telling Tales: Excursions in Narrative Form

Y2 - 2 June 2016 through 9 October 2016

ER -