The Space Within

The SAHMRI exhibition The Space Within continues Bridgette Minuzzo’s exploration of new media. In 2011, Minuzzo completed an Honours Degree in Visual Arts at the University of South Australia, which was an opportunity for Minuzzo to develop exhibition work and focus her art practice in a new direction: new media and digital work. Since graduating, Minuzzo has continued to explore moving image, installation, sound and digital imagery. She won the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition’s City of Adelaide Award in 2012 and has twice been a finalist for SALA’s moving image award. In 2013, Minuzzo was commissioned by the Art Gallery of South Australia to make Of Light and Clouds for The Studio, as part of Turner from the Tate and formed a partnership with the Adelaide Festival Centre to present Phantasmagoria, a projection and soundscape as part of the Festival Centre’s 40th anniversary celebrations last year. “My visual art practice encompasses moving image, photography, installation and soundscapes,” Minuzzo explains. “I have been making works about experiences which are often unnoticed; light and shadow, shapes and patterns in the built environment, movement of the wind and ambient sounds.” This celebration of architectural form, in sound and moving image, led to an artist’s residency at SAHMRI. Minuzzo is one of two artists currently in residence at SAHMRI (alongside Sonya Unwin) and their exhibition The Space Within is the first art exhibition to be presented at SAHMRI, as part of SALA. During her residency, Minuzzo has taken the opportunity to document and interpret forms and patterns in the SAHMRI building – the play of light and shadows throughout the seasons – and reflect on the nature of medical research with respect to her own creative processes. She has experimented with looking and listening to the building through the inter-phase of medical research equipment, and has produced a series of three works. “SAHMRI – Through another Lens is an interpretation in moving image of the form and function of this unique health and medical research institute. “I wanted to make a meditative and reverent work, that was somewhat elemental, so I have worked with digital imagery of SAHMRI within circles (a symbol of the holistic), adding heartbeat, breath and a vocal harmonic rendition of the elements of the periodic table.” “The Space Within was an opportunity to explore this amazing space, talk with medical researchers and laboratory staff and explore making objects from moments captured through the lens of my camera and through laboratory glassware.” Minuzzo, who was a finalist in The Advertiser Contemporary Art Award for SALA, says The Space Within is about place and function and is a “celebration of the SAHMRI architecture, which also references medical research conducted at the centre”. * Article supplied by The University of South Australia The Space Within SAHMRI, North Terrace Friday, August 8 to Friday, August 29