Ilana
Razbash
BArchDes. MArch. RAIA
RE/SET
Curated by Rachel Iampolski & Ilana Razbash
RMIT First Site Gallery 23.11.21 - 10.12.21
RE/SET explores the ways in which we frame our connection to, and reading of, place. Presented works will be accompanied by a series of programmed events, featuring practitioners from the fields of visual arts, geography, movement, academia and music. The exhibition prompts conversations around how to develop a collective vision for the future, whilst learning from the past.
Featuring works by Ceridwen McCooey, Joel Bray, Larissa MacFarlane, Women of Melbourne Parkour, Ilana Razbash, Michael Santos, Public Street, Savanna Wegman, Sha Sarwari and Zena Cumpston.
Explore the exhibition online via Matterport scan HERE
All works included in RE/SET are copyright and courtesy of the artists. Graphic design and promotional material copyright Ilana Razbash. RMIT First Site Gallery is located on the unceded lands of the Woi Wurrung language group of the eastern Kulin Nations.
Curator's Statement:
RE/SET explores our complex connections to place. Occurring on stolen land, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 global pandemic, this exhibition brings together a diverse cohort of emerging and established artists, performers, researchers and activists, from interdisciplinary yet allied fields, and asks them to share a glimpse into their relationship with the spaces they occupy.
A couple of feet under Swanston Street, beneath the vaulted ceilings of the First Site we are guided by the stars above. Centring around the gallery, we have mapped connections to key stars and planets, and transposed this onto the walls of First Site. Thereby becoming markers and anchors in place – the yellow tape relates to positions of celestial bodies on our original opening night, while blue tape marks the show’s second reset. Both sets of lines have become a memory of the exhibition’s various incarnations and date changes. In between the ‘star code’ mapping are snippets of Zena Cumpston’s archival project documenting endemic plant species, bringing attention back to the ground and Country that the exhibition is situated on. Retired rock climbing rope - generously donated by members of the Victorian climbing community - combined with the tape and archive, forms the skeleton of an event space. A “space within a space” that facilitates conversation, performance and exchange, which when activated becomes a work in itself. Through the works and these spatial interventions, RE/SET explores our inextricable connection to each other and our surrounding context.
- Rachel Iampolski & Ilana Razbash, 2021