Asobi \ is this something?

Asobi is a Japanese word that can be translated as play or amusement. In the context of design and mechanics it describes play, or slack - the amount of freedom of movement between connected parts. Both artists find resonance in this idea through their textile assemblages, reclaimed materials, sculptural forms and unexpected connections. Artists and friends Susie Duggin and Sarah Harvey conceived this exhibition to reinvigorate long-standing art practices that have, at times, been overtaken by the demands of busy, modern lives. Making art has always been central to how they understand and engage with the world around them and this exhibition marks a renewed engagement with that relationship - with their work, with themselves and with each other. Asobi speaks to their shared desire to approach making through intuitive play and experimentation, preserving the freedom to simply make and see what arises, allowing their practices to move beyond what they have been in the past, and towards what they might become. Is this something? Is perhaps the inevitable question that arises from this approach? It invites looking again at what has been discovered and uncovered, rearranged and reimagined. What happens when materials are released from their expected functions and allowed to become something else? Despite living and working in different locations, the artists have rediscovered a shared artistic language that encompasses a love of colour, textile forms and the mysterious nature of objects. Their work oscillates between what is familiar and unfamiliar, the functional and the ornamental. What makes an object a sculpture, an ornament, a fragment or something altogether different?

Listed by Byron School of Art