Hannah Furmage (Australia)
Residencey April - May - June 2007

www.hannahfurmage.com
hannahfurmage@gmail.com

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Artist Statement

Hannah Furmage is a conceptual artist living and working in Sydney, Australia. Her work is the
product of interactions with people who inhabit the margins of social acceptability. In previous
works she has collaborated with professional boxers, prisoners and heroin dealers. Her work is
both orchestrated and spontaneous representations of encounters with the participants.
Emphasis in the work is on the interaction between the collaborators and the end product is often
an artifact of the experience of making the artwork.

Furmage challenges the perceived cultural authority of the artist, allowing the work to be shaped
and dependant on the collaborators. This interaction aims to cultivate understanding between co-
participants through a genuine shared experience. She does this not as a moral crusader of the
middle class but by recognizing her collaborators as comrades in the shared daily struggles of life
under an increasing oppressive and divisive political/economic regime.

Images

Coming Soon

Essay

Proposed Project

During the residency at Raid in April/May/June 2007 I will develop a work to exhibit by initiating
an ongoing dialogue with a community that inhabits the out skirts of Los Angeles society.
Examples of possible co-participants are; KKK clansman, extreme right wing patriots, Mormons,
extreme right wing patriots, Alien abductees, real life vampires.

The work is not set. It will be a product of conversations between the co-participants. I will provide
a provisional framework in which the co-participants can interact and exchange ideas. It is both
mediated and unpredictable. These encounters will be physically represented in the resulting
exhibition through video, sound and/or performance.

By remaining open and listening to the co-participants I will endeavor to enter into the
collaboration on an equal footing, this creates the space for mutual understanding and explores
the potential for a universal mode of communication.

My intention however is not to reinforce notions of ‘collective identity’ rather it is to aggravate the
notion of it and the audiences reliance on it. How do you form collective or communal identity
when there are people obviously excluded from it? Is it possible to develop a cross-cultural
dialogue without sacrificing the unique identities of individuals? Who’s values or interest is this
superior legitimacy determined?

The work suspends judgment and creates an equal platform to showcase thoughts that are
intentionally provocative and morally ambiguous. While there is no guarantee that the interaction
in the work will result in agreement, it can influence us towards an inclusive and coherent
understanding of collective identity and challenges us to think beyond the current politically
correct discourse that constrains any possibility for genuine exchange.

Biography

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2006 Fighting Song, curated by Sally Breen, Artspace, Sydney
2004 Scoring Dope For Sally, Artspace , Sydney

Selected Group Exhibitions
2007 Ten(d)ancy, curated by Sally Breen & Tania Doropolous, Elizabeth Bay House
2005 Turning Tricks: Old-School Magic by New School Artists, curated by Soda_Jerk, Firstdraft
Gallery, Sydney
2005 No Return, Kings Gallery, Curated by Brendan Lee & James Dodd, Melbourne
2005 Settling Old Scores, performer in Richard Bell exhibition, Artspace, Sydney
2004 Fear Of Joy, durational performance with German artist Via Lewandowsky, Artspace,
Sydney
2003 $5 Steak Night, curator and co-performer site-specific performance installations,
Hollywood Hotel, Sydney
2002 Look Mum No Head, curator and co-performer site-specific performance installations,
Imperial Slacks Gallery, Sydney
2001 Kiss My Fist, co-writer and performer, Performance Space, Sydney
2001 The Devil Made Me Do It, written and performed with Brian Fuata, Performance Space,
Sydney

Publications
VOGUE MAGAZINE, interviewed by Celeste Young, April 2007,
NEW YORK ART MAGAZINE, Artist Profile, Jan/Feb 2007
REALTIME, Artists Invade History, by Daniel Palmer, Oct/Nov 2006
OZ BOXING MAGAZINE, Nice Piece of Arts, January 2006
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Smack On The Wrist, Andrew Hornery, April 2005
STATE OF THE ARTS, Art Review, Alex McDonald, April 2005
UN MAGAZINE
REALTIME, Dressed to Distress, Ian MacNeill, Feb 2002