2025 - Grow Member Exhibition
This opportunity to exhibit in the heart of Southbank, the leafy counterpart to the bustle of Brisbane city, provides an opening to respond to and interact with the environment in a multitude of ways. Artists will have the opportunity to make work that draws upon botanical themes through representations of specific plants or through the creation of forms that echo the dynamics of nature.
Grow could also be interpreted more broadly – growth occurs in many forms: cities and structures, movements and networks, the rise and fall of empires, all connected, in some way, to the natural cycles of growth and decay. It could apply to the materials that jewellers and metal-smiths use, as metals crystallise and “grow” in the Earth’s crust and gemstones form over immeasurable periods of time. Some studio processes, such as electrolysis, directly utilise processes of growth, following rules of chemistry and physics that are echoed on a macro-scale in deep space. It could also apply on a more personal, human level and reflect the ways that we also grow, and change, throughout the course of life, both physically and in our inner lives.
Our organisation itself is an example of how networks grow between individuals and form connections on multiple levels, much like the rhizomatic fungal pathways that form between roots under the surface of forest floors. These interconnections facilitate communication and exchange between individuals and are the invisible support system that underlies a healthy ecosystem. Although systems fail and organisms must eventually die, there is always something waiting to make a fresh start, to draw on what has gone before, to transmute, to germinate and to show a spark of life: the indomitable and endless capacity of life to find a way, to grow.
Works by JMGQ members. Photography © Michelle Bowden.
Grow could also be interpreted more broadly – growth occurs in many forms: cities and structures, movements and networks, the rise and fall of empires, all connected, in some way, to the natural cycles of growth and decay. It could apply to the materials that jewellers and metal-smiths use, as metals crystallise and “grow” in the Earth’s crust and gemstones form over immeasurable periods of time. Some studio processes, such as electrolysis, directly utilise processes of growth, following rules of chemistry and physics that are echoed on a macro-scale in deep space. It could also apply on a more personal, human level and reflect the ways that we also grow, and change, throughout the course of life, both physically and in our inner lives.
Our organisation itself is an example of how networks grow between individuals and form connections on multiple levels, much like the rhizomatic fungal pathways that form between roots under the surface of forest floors. These interconnections facilitate communication and exchange between individuals and are the invisible support system that underlies a healthy ecosystem. Although systems fail and organisms must eventually die, there is always something waiting to make a fresh start, to draw on what has gone before, to transmute, to germinate and to show a spark of life: the indomitable and endless capacity of life to find a way, to grow.
Works by JMGQ members. Photography © Michelle Bowden.
