First in a series of iterative projects that – through collaborative practices – aim to build a houseboat.
This extended project will be brought to bear using a skill-sharing methodology, engaging with boat-builders, lead-light-makers, contemporary artists, ecologists, and people currently living on houseboats. DREAMBOAT will serve as both an art space and a space for Sarah to live. The aim of this project is to create a space able to be a permanent ARI fixture for Brisbane experimental art, untying the contingency of art spaces on real estate rental markets.
In this first iteration, Sarah and Dana collaborate to produce together the glass features intended to be used on the structure as windows. The exhibition also presents the initial development of solar power systems for the structure. The idea of ‘light’ is both practically and conceptually implicated. Soft sun against useful surfaces. Reflection and light between veils; pierced, repelled, harnessed.
Dana Lawrie is a Brisbane-based artist working within expanded notions of self-portraiture. Dana graduated a Bachelor of Fine Arts with first class honours from Queensland College of Art. Her work has been exhibited at Metro Arts (QLD), Flowstate Southbank (QLD), Crossarts Projects/Alaska (NSW), Stable Art Space (QLD) and Wreckers Artspace (QLD). She has undertaken residencies at Metro Arts and SGAR as well as being selected as a finalist in Sunshine Coast Art Award, The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, Clayton Utz Art Award and Redlands Art Award.
Sarah Poulgrain has shown nationally and internationally at several ARIs (West Space, Boxcopy, Firstdraft, Metro Arts, Success, Visual Bulk, Bus Projects, The Soylent Spot, RM, Desire Lines) and co-founded Wreckers Artspace with Hailey Atkins and Anya Swan. In early 2019 Sarah received an Australia Council Individual Project Grant to develop new work and has continued work on long-term Brisbane based projects, including Wreckers Upstairs with Llewellyn Millhouse (2022). Sarah was a part of the Institute of Modern Art’s Making Art Work program, and has also facilitated the Institute of Modern Art’s First Thursday program in October last year with a chair building project, where four participants learnt how to weld a chair of their own design.
