Becky Richards | Barbara Smith Castles from the Back Lot | A Diverse Cast

Barbara Smith and Becky Richards are both installation artists, though that is perhaps where the obvious similarities end. On Saturday 3 March the artists will descend on Dunedin - Smith from Hamilton, Richards from Christchurch via Melbourne - and begin to occupy the Upper and Darkside Galleries of the Blue Oyster. The pair will install their work together, but separately. A kind of un-collaboration where the gallery space is yet to be allocated and the artists’ interventions will take them meandering around the space, overlapping each other, figuring out just what they can do as they do it.

Smith’s body of work, "A Diverse Cast," will see the installation of a number of objects created in her studio in Hamilton transported down to Dunedin in the back of her car. A road trip of sorts with resin, metal and perspex characters bumping around in the boot. At the final destination they will take up new positions in the gallery, perhaps a little jumbled. When Smith leaves the space it will be almost as if someone has shaken a Boggle box and left the letters lying for the the next willing participant to solve.

Richards will also bring her favoured materials with her, in this case a trailerload of recycled construction materials from the fractured realm of Christchurch, to divide and conquer the space; splitting it into fiefdoms populated by rock fortifications and grasses. If Smith intends on releasing inhabitants into the Blue Oyster, then Richards will attempt to give them gardens and borders. Miniature land art for the masses. 

Barbara Smith graduated from Whitecliffe College with an Masters of Fine Arts in 2010. Becky Richards graduated from Ilam School of Fine Arts in 2011 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Sculpture, she now co-runs White Elephant Arts Warehouse in Melbourne.

Presented alongside Monique Jansen and Frances Hansen Alongside Project