Road Trip: Collaboration with Jill Kinnear (2013)
Road Trip is a collaborative project that brings together Ann-Maree Reaney, a visual artist based in Brisbane, and Jill Kinnear, an Australian textile designer and artist currently based in the USA. The artists embarked on the Road Trip project as a way to maintain their friendship and mutual interests once Kinnear moved to America. The premise was simple: Reaney and Kinnear would meet each year in a chosen location and with their abiding interest in other cultures and a shared sense of adventure, they would capture the essence of their travels through imaginative cataloguing of imagery and experience. Three journeys eventuated: a sojourn in Morocco, 5 weeks in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat and a road trip across America from Savannah to L.A. Each journey inspired a unique collection of garments which reflect, directly through the artists’ video footage and photography, the major influences of their travel experiences.
Road Trip is a collaborative project that brings together Ann-Maree Reaney, a visual artist based in Brisbane, and Jill Kinnear, an Australian textile designer and artist currently based in the USA. The artists embarked on the Road Trip project as a way to maintain their friendship and mutual interests once Kinnear moved to America. The premise was simple: Reaney and Kinnear would meet each year in a chosen location and with their abiding interest in other cultures and a shared sense of adventure, they would capture the essence of their travels through imaginative cataloguing of imagery and experience. Three journeys eventuated: a sojourn in Morocco, 5 weeks in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat and a road trip across America from Savannah to L.A. Each journey inspired a unique collection of garments which reflect, directly through the artists’ video footage and photography, the major influences of their travel experiences.
Overview of Road Trip exhibition, Artisan Gallery, Brisbane, 20th June – 3rd August, 2013.
Four Corners dress 1, American Road Trip collection, digitally printed onto cotton sateen from artists' travel video and photographs.
Four Corners dress 1, photograph with model, American Road Trip collection, digitally printed onto cotton sateen from artists’ travel video and photographs.
Alabama Rainstorm dress, American Road Trip collection, digitally printed onto cotton sateen from artists’ travel video and photographs.
Coming into L.A. dress, American collection, 2013, digitally printed onto cotton sateen from artists’ travel video and photographs.
Coming into L.A. dress, American collection, 2013, digitally printed onto cotton sateen from artists’ travel video and photographs.
Marrakech dress, Moroccan collection, 2013, digitally printed onto silk sateen and cotton sateen from artists’ travel photographs.
Indian Trucks, 2013, Indian collection, Road Trip exhibition, digitally printed onto cotton voile from artists’ travel video and photographs.
Jaipur Jacket, 2013, Indian collection, Road Trip exhibition, recycled foil and plastic from Khamir Craft Resource Centre, Gujarat, vintage Rabari mirror embroidery from Ekta Art, Bhuj, custom piping and gold/silver trim from Jaipur.
Barbara Wally notes that artists “…travel differently. This distinguishes them from other people. For an artist the idea of travel as a holiday is simply absurd. When travelling they switch on, not off… They are focused on the journey as an artistic activity.”[i] The works on display demonstrate how true this is for Reaney and Kinnear, who are also acutely aware that their collections are a projection of the travel experience mediated by many factors. Their manipulation of their travel documentation to create the textile designs on display is symbolic of the process we go through when travelling, where experiences and memories are filtered through mythology, history and expectations set by travel guides or romanticised films.
In her essay ‘On Photography’ Susan Sontag writes that the photograph, with the implication that what it represents is real, has overtaken reality. “It is reality which is scrutinized, and evaluated, for its fidelity to photographs”[ii], she writes. Photography has contributed to fictionalising place by allowing us to have a sense of it without actually visiting; should we choose to visit we anticipate our experience because of the photographic/cinematic reference. A place therefore becomes an article of consumption. Echoing Benjamin, Sontag writes, “Bringing the exotic near…photographs make the entire world available as an object of appraisal.”[iii] It is these ideas which contribute to the work that Reaney and Kinnear present here.
[i] Wally, B., 2007, Transitory; Traveling, seeing and photographing. Four new series by Rivka Rinn, in Rivka Rinn, Galerie Fotohof, Salzburg.
[ii] Sontag, S., 1973, On Photography, Picador, New York, p 87.
[iii] Sontag, S., 1973, On Photography, Picador, New York, p 110.
The exhibition also included two installation videos (9 minutes and 3 minutes), and a 100 image PowerPoint explaining the process and construction of the artwork.
This project has received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
Our thanks also to the Fibers Department of Savannah College of Art and Design USA, Lucy-belle Rayner and Sarah Rayner, Don Hildred Photography, the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology, Fashion Department.
all images and text this page copyright of Ann-Maree Reaney and Jill Kinnear
In her essay ‘On Photography’ Susan Sontag writes that the photograph, with the implication that what it represents is real, has overtaken reality. “It is reality which is scrutinized, and evaluated, for its fidelity to photographs”[ii], she writes. Photography has contributed to fictionalising place by allowing us to have a sense of it without actually visiting; should we choose to visit we anticipate our experience because of the photographic/cinematic reference. A place therefore becomes an article of consumption. Echoing Benjamin, Sontag writes, “Bringing the exotic near…photographs make the entire world available as an object of appraisal.”[iii] It is these ideas which contribute to the work that Reaney and Kinnear present here.
[i] Wally, B., 2007, Transitory; Traveling, seeing and photographing. Four new series by Rivka Rinn, in Rivka Rinn, Galerie Fotohof, Salzburg.
[ii] Sontag, S., 1973, On Photography, Picador, New York, p 87.
[iii] Sontag, S., 1973, On Photography, Picador, New York, p 110.
The exhibition also included two installation videos (9 minutes and 3 minutes), and a 100 image PowerPoint explaining the process and construction of the artwork.
This project has received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
Our thanks also to the Fibers Department of Savannah College of Art and Design USA, Lucy-belle Rayner and Sarah Rayner, Don Hildred Photography, the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology, Fashion Department.
all images and text this page copyright of Ann-Maree Reaney and Jill Kinnear
