FOUND OBJECT INSTALLATION

  

Last week I participated in a series of events in Launceston, Tasmania, with some of my colleagues from the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu school of Ikebana. The events were organised by Eleanor Button, and mostly took place across the week at the National Trust property, Franklin House.  

Other events were held on Tuesday at the School of Architecture at the University of Tasmania, Launceston. The space we were offered was the vast Curtin Hall, in which some installation work was proposed. When I saw the photo above and the plans of the space I could see we were being challenged. By definition, installation art needs to relate directly, physically or visually to the space which they occupy. The works need to create a dialogue with the space. 

In the photograph above, the colourful stackable chairs caught my attention. I thought they would make an interesting material to use which was quite specific to the space. To illustrate my thinking to my colleagues, I showed them a photo...

...in which I had created this assemblage using the chairs in our conservatory. 

In the past my students and I had made installation work at the Qdos gallery in Lorne. However, in those cases we used botanical materials which we related to the physical structure of the building and ceramics made by Graeme Wilkie.

Here Andy McCabe is assisting me with the structure that was already almost completed.

This is my completed installation, an assemblage of "found objects" *. I used steel framed chairs of one design with three different colourways in the upholstery. There are only two chairs touching the floor and forming the base of the assemblage. The chairs were interlocked without using any "ties".

The huge wall of glass made photography difficult in the space so I used a couple of notice boards to background the structure.

Andy volunteered this apple as an organic material to contrast with the chairs. Please imagine a row of five oranges on this chair. I did not have the opportunity to buy the oranges.

Elsewhere in this very large space, I assisted Aileen Clarke in the creation of another structure using man-made and botanical materials. The structure was made with two metre lengths of square-section wood which were screwed together. Dry and fresh branch material was added to create contrasting lines and mass.

Here is Aileen with her finished structure. 

Greetings from Christopher
24th of August 2025

* Rosalie Gascoigne a Sogetsu Ikebana trained artist became one of Australia's most famous sculptors working in the "Found object" style.