EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW | FAIRHALL | JANET LAURENCE: THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND*

Janet Laurence, one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists, will explore our collection alongside her own creative practices - collecting and saving, nature and the environment - within the context of Fairhall exhibition-house.

Laurence’s artistic practice is based on the Wunderkammer, a “cabinet of curiosity” or a collection of notable objects. William Johnston’s exhibition-house is itself a cabinet of curiosities and wonders filled with objects and items that he assembled for himself over 40 years.

William Johnston’s own collecting and gathering from around the world, along with his love of gardening, will underpin and reflect Laurence’s ideas. Johnston found comfort, beauty and solace as he collected plants on his international travels, created, nurtured, assembled and loved his own gardens with care.

Her exhibition will challenge the conventions of our exhibition spaces and the relationships to nature and culture, collecting and discovery, and the natural environment, internalised within Fairhall.

This exhibition is a part of the continuing ‘house of ideas’ project series where TJC commissions guest artists to use Fairhall as a site-specific installation space to reconceptualise the exhibition-house and explore its many layers of meaning. By doing so, The Collection will continue to consider old objects in new ways. 

*THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND by Wallace Stevens, © 1967, 1969, 1971 by Holly Stevens

This exhibition is supported by The Besen Foundation and The Friends of The Johnston Collection.

Janet Laurence is represented by ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.