Jordan Davey-Emms, Isabella Dampney, Samantha Cheng
30 September—14 October
Curated by Felixe Laing
Rumpus presents three new commissions from Jordan Davey-Emms, Isabella Dampney and Samantha Cheng developed through their Play workshops.
The Play workshop series took place in the first half of 2023 and gave Davey-Emms, Dampney and Cheng the opportunity to think about play in their practices and led a participatory workshop or performance.
Davey-Emms led the alter-ego portrait workshop Headshot kitchen, Dampney invited participants to play the board game CA$HFLOW and Cheng asked people to make a temporary exhibition on a train from Newmarket to Mt Albert in Passengers.
The Play workshops invited the artists to engage audiences in playful artmaking, creating collaborative or performative environments for artistic research. In these workshops play was used as a tool to enable artists and participants the freedom to try new things without the same pressure or expectations for resolved outcomes. This generated a series of workshops full of surprises, laughter, encouragement and new perspectives.
In Rumpus each artist interprets and uses play in different ways as characterised in their play workshops; Davey-Emms through costuming and stage dressing, Dampney engages gameplay and storytelling and Cheng with performance highlighting the humor and failures of everyday life.
Rumpus concludes a collaborative inquiry into what is playful practice, showcasing three exciting, bold and comical commissions.
Join us for the exhibition opening Saturday 30 September 2-4pm at Chez Derriere.