Current Residents Simon Lawrie
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Simon Lawrie. Photo by Peninsula Essence.
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Natasha Johns-Messenger, Envelop (installation view, A thousand different angles), 2022. Photo by Christian Capurro.
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Madelynne Cornish, Borderlands (installation view, Site and sound: sonic art as ecological practice), 2020. Photo by Christian Capurro.
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Manon van Kouswijk, Peninsula pearls (installation view, Peninsula Link, Melbourne), 2021. Photo by Steve Brown.
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John Meade with Emily Karanikolopoulos, Love Flower (installation view, Peninsula Link, Melbourne), 2019. Photo by Andrew Curtis.
Simon Lawrie is an independent curator and writer with extensive experience in spatial practice, public art commissions and site-responsive projects. His approach aims to articulate and augment the experience of place, working closely with artists across sculpture, sound, installation, film and performance to explore tensions between integration and intervention at a given site. Based in Melbourne, he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and a Master of Art Curatorship at University of Melbourne. Major exhibitions include Site and sound: sonic art as ecological practice (2021) and Solid light: Josef Stanislaw Ostoja-Kotkowski (2019).
During my residency I will develop, test, and critically evaluate approaches to site-responsive curatorial practice by exploring the potential value of the unfamiliar, informed by the concept of ostranenie or defamiliarisation. Transposing this notion to the experience of place through site-specific works, I intend to build connections within the local arts ecology and consider the nuances of Finnish contemporary art and curatorial practice. Outcomes may include collaboration and exchange in Finland and Australia, concept proposals for public artworks, and online forums to complement my current project curating the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2025.
The residency is realised with the support of The Australia Council for the Arts.