24 February - 14 March 2010

8 ARTISTS
Digging
CURATED BY ABBEY CECIL

Benjamin Bourke 
Nicole Chaffey 
Kieran Perry 
Morgan Read
Michael Keith Richards 
Maria Rufo
Rose Turner
Megan Williams

Each of these eight artists from the University of Newcastle in these four rooms was invited to respond to the poem 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney.  The Irish poet compares and contrasts the physical labour of his family's potato farming and peat digging; and the mental labour he undertakes as a writer.

As Heaney 'digs' with his pen, he is at once paying homage to his legacy and insisting upon deviating from his forbears' entrenched path.  'Digging' is layered with metaphor and contains an abundance of expressions that might awaken any number of the reader's senses.

Given Heaney's countless themes, each artist has found a unique angle to look at the poem. Conveyed through a variety of materials, these works illuminate the facet (or facets) of 'Digging' most interesting and important to the artists.    

Abbey Cecil



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The Journey
LEASHA CRAIG

These works reflect on the journey of our children through their adolescent years into adulthood within a society in which the tolerance and frequency of violence and aggression has become common place.

Leasha Craig



Tribe
BREONY DELFORCE

Through alternative photography and the interlaying of cultural artifacts Tribe explores the dialogue of global female culture and the identity of the tribe of women by invoking the rites of scarification and tattooing, and penetrating the myth of the primitive, exotic ‘other’.

Breony Delforce