Booked! in more detail

I mentioned last weekend that we were in Cairns for the celebrations around Booked! and International Women's Day.  We had a fine time up north and I was thrilled to be able to see the exhibition and to share in celebrating women in the arts.

Sometimes you see an exhibition and you realise it is 'so you'. It was that way for me with this one; I gazed upon it in awe and with such delight - everything was so beautiful, so thoughtful, so intimate and so wonderfully wrought.

As many, if not most of you, won't get the chance to get to Cairns to see them, I thought I'd share a few of them in more detail.

My favourite piece and the one I kept returning to was by Rose Rigley. Titled "A preserving nature: Family History" it explored how families hold memories in tangible objects and how these are valued and experienced across generations. Lovely threads and wax and shards of ceramics were held in this book.

Another intriguing piece was by Barbara Dover - Book of truth. Using a reconstructed book and horse hair it speaks about animals in warfare and how they have been used and abused.

I was also taken by the warmth and inviting nature of this book by Susan Porteous. It references how Gandhis said spinning could save India - by spinning the fibres for making their own cotton, the country could be liberated economically. This book uses an old spindle and a book about Gandhi where the pages have been spun into this continuous thread…a contemplative and meditative practice.

I loved the simplicity and elegance of Louisa Boyd's 'Pleat', part of a series where she explores paper and taking it from a 2-D surface to a 3-D form; letting the humble page of paper shine.

Vide Freiberg's "What to expect when you are expecting" considers how the truth around childbirth is shared between women, not always fully told, and how this information can be kept from women who haven't experienced childbirth.

In "Ci-Cz"Ania Gilmore uses torn English and Polish book pages, rearranged and structured to form the word Citizenship with the I connecting the two words. From the World Book Encyclopaedia, she discovered that a word that has been such a long part of her life journey, can be described with such a short description.

Mandy Gunn's "Between the lines" uses the Oxford dictionary and braille paper, torn and cut and reassembled onto cardboard in a 3-D design. It suggest how we all see and use information differently and that it is often important tot read between the lines, not simply accept something at face value.

And then just because I loved it so…more of Rose's book in detail.

You can see what a beautiful and serene show it was, how the pieces worked together so harmoniously and each held a story beyond their visual story.  I remain thrilled and honoured to have joined these women in this exhibition.