Blown
Away - Reflections on the Casualties of War
by Liz Ashburn and Vivienne Dadour
Open 11am - 5pm Fri - Sun, 22 April - 8 May
Opening event 6-8pm Saturday 30 April
The exhibition is to be opened by Nick Vickers
The exhibition is to be opened by Nick Vickers
This is a Head
On event
INVITATION pdf
FACEBOOK EVENT
Blown Away is a collection of art works that
deal with issues particularly urgent for today. Encompassing photography,
sculpture, drawing and installation, the works in this exhibition are a
collaborative project by two artists, Vivienne Dadour and Liz Ashburn. Here
they reconsider the well known facts surrounding the US bombing of Laos in 1964
to 1973, and the continuing carnage in the Middle East. These actions are not
hidden as they have been reported in the media, but their very notoriety
obscures and obliterates the individual tragedies and cultural displacement
that are part of the reality of past and present, war and conflict in these
regions. The artists’ engagement in focusing on such events aligns with the political sub-texts often found in
their previous artwork. Documentation of what may have been obliterated,
ignored, hidden or obscured provides the continuing ideological basis of their
collaboration.
Blown Away continues their concerns over the
failure to recognize the humanity of others, the indifference to the rights of
civilians in situations of armed conflict and the reliance on aggressive
solutions in preference to negotiation. The actions and influence of the
producers of munitions, bombs and landmines in continuing the industrial
slaughter begun in World War 1 is indefensible as these products result in
blighted lives, displacement, mental illness and the destruction of many
cultural and artistic endeavours.
Blown Away makes visible what becomes evaporated
in war — truth, life and culture.
They have deliberately chosen to exhibit over the Anzac period as this
time of meditation on conflict seems to invite both reconsideration of the past and renew a desire for a future
where there is peace.
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Vivienne Dadour -Meeting Place (installation detail) 2016
Archival digital prints, artifacts, paint, string. dimensions variable
|
In Meeting
Place and My Grandpapa and
Uncles Used To Be Soldiers Vivienne Dadour connects the paradox between the gentle culture of
Laos people and the “secret
battlefields” of the Vietnam War. Between 1964-1973 the US Air Force dropped more than 2
million tons of ordnance on Laos for the general
purpose of killing and exterminating civilians in order to prevent the
entry of arms into Vietnam. viviennedadour.com
 |
| Liz Ashburn- IED (Improvised Explosive Device) with Butterfly Bombs (installation detail) 2016, ceramic artillery shells rewired to become landmines, ceramics, acrylic and electrical wires. dimensions variable. |
In Iraq Suite Liz Ashburn places the
richness of Muslim decorative traditions in contrast to the imagery provided by Western mass
media about the armed conflict in the Middle East. Know Your Landmine! introduces the use of
landmines, which kill 15,00 t0 20,000 people every year and cost the people
they were used against, US$3 -15 to produce and US$300 - 1,000 to remove.
lizashburn.com/