CCP DECLARES: ON THE NATURE OF THINGS
Jane Brown, Ross Coulter, Yavuz Erkan, Andrew Hazewinkel,
Amy Marjoram, Nasim Nasr, David Nixon, Jacky Redgate

Curated by Kyla McFarlane

CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things is a major 'declarative' exhibition featuring work by eight artists working at the forefront of contemporary Australian photography and video and its expanded field. This ambitious project is the first in an occasional series of statement exhibitions for CCP that will take a position on developments in contemporary practice from across the country.

In 2012, CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things brings together work by emerging and mid-career artists that is loosely, sometimes tangentially, connected by their relationship to 'things' in the world. The artists present 'things' as subject matter, or attend in varied ways to the photograph as object. In some instances, they do both. The works range from photographs and videos featuring our relationship to objects both precious and banal, to carefully hand-printed photographs, to photographs as performance documentation, as well as a photo-sculptural response to a collection of gelatin silver, glass plate photographic negatives of antique sculptures.

On the Nature of Things is a philosophical poem from the first century BC by the Roman Epicurian, Titus Lucretius Carus. In his scientific and poetic text, Lucretius explains the material universe as being formed by the movement and joining together of 'atoms' in a vast void space, equating our own make-up with that of the objects and natural phenomena we see and feel around us. He uses this scientific logic to entreat his reader to live a life of pleasure, sensation and enjoyment, rather than one in constant fear of death and the wrath of the gods.

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