Please take a seat and just a few chairs: Niomi Sands

2008 - 2009

Many of the Museum’s exhibitions focus on significant historical events, experiences and people and explore the rich history of life in the Hawkesbury.  This exhibition, drawn from the collection of the Hawkesbury Historical Society, made a big impression through objects that typified an ordinary and commonplace experience, the daily life of (mostly) persons unknown. It included just a few of the precious objects of a singular type - the chair - and stories that are intrinsic to the fabric of the Hawkesbury story.

As part of the ongoing program of exhibitions at the Hawkesbury Regional Museum, artists will be invited to respond to objects and themes within the collection of the Hawkesbury Historical Society. For this first exhibition artist Niomi Sands responded to the chair.

Just a few chairs: Niomi Sands is a series of chairs inspired by objects from the collection of the Hawkesbury Historical Society. Objects document our lives and trigger memories from the distant and not so distant past. If only these chairs could talk, they would be able reminisce and share memories about the families, people and history of this area. Each of Sands chairs, miniature versions of chairs from the collection, has been meticulously carved from translucent soap and embellished with cotton embroidery. The translucent and ephemeral qualities of the soap give each chair a ghostly, transient and shadowy presence like the memories and time they reflect.

This installation of objects acts as a theatrical stage set for memory, with carefully chosen materials that exploit the associations linked to experience.

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