Category: Mix and Match City

Mix and Match City

Tracey Clement, ‘Mix and Match City,’ 2020, laser-cut recycled cardboard, tape, glue, dimensions variable (40 units). Installed in ‘The Home’ at Hazelhurst Arts Centre. Photo: Silversalt.

Mix and Match City is a mini-metropolis that deliberately draws on the inherently aspirational symbolism of architectural models. All architectural models represent an idea, a vision for the future made manifest in miniature. They are real, but not fully realised. Infused with potential, they are liminal zones tinged with hope.

Mix and Match City was exhibited in the group show THE HOME at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre 29 August – 8  November 2020.

Watch me talk about the work in the video below at approx 4.25 mins.

Mix and Match City at Hazelhurst (dining room)

Tracey Clement, ‘Mix and Match City,’ 2020, laser cut recycled cardboard, tape, glue, dimensions variable. Installed in the dining room of the cottage at Hazelhurst, August 2020.

Another photo shoot of Mix and Match City in a domestic setting, this time in the dining room of the Hazelhurst ‘cottage.’

Mix and Match City can be seen in the group show THE HOME at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre until 8 November 2020.

There is something interesting happening here. Something to do with the model city – already a microcosm of the macrocosm – being brought into a domestic setting: another microcosm (the single dwelling, home of the nuclear family et al) within the macrocosm of society.

I haven’t quite figured out yet, and certainly haven’t properly articulated it yet….

Mix and Match City at Hazelhurst (bathroom)

 

Tracey Clement, ‘Mix and Match City,’ 2020, laser cut recycled cardboard, tape, glue, dimensions variable. Installed in the bathroom of the cottage at Hazelhurst, August 2020.

In late August 2020 I undertook a short stint as artist in residence at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre, staying in the fabulous 1940s art deco ‘cottage.’

I couldn’t resist installing my Mix and Match City in the over-the-top original deco bathroom.

Mix and Match City can be seen in the group show THE HOME at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre until 8 November 2020.

 

Mix and Match City: Hazelhurst Residency

Tracey Clement, ‘Mix and Match City,’ 2020, laser-cut recycled cardboard, tape, glue, dimensions variable (40 units). Installed in ‘The Home’ at Hazelhurst Arts Centre. (Catherine O’Donnell’s work in the background.) Photo: Silversalt.

The multiple little buildings presented in Mix and Match City encompass an eclectic range of styles that were nonetheless all made from a selection of just six basic shapes.

In this model city structures resembling classic art deco skyscrapers from New York or Chicago, Aztec pyramids, adobe masterpieces from Timbuktu, Persian towers, pan-Asian pagodas and suburban Aussie bungalows all coexist harmoniously. And if they can, maybe we can too?

At a time when the notion of home seems more important than ever, Mix and Match City is a mini utopia, a gesture towards a better future.

 

I constructed this iteration of Mix and Match City while staying the the 1940s art deco ‘cottage’ as artist in residence at Hazelhurst in August 2020.

Mix and Match City was exhibited in the group show THE HOME at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre 29 August – 8  November 2020.