Bendigo art event (Issue 10, 2009)

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Chris and Saghar at their first exhibition

Friday, 29 May, two La Trobe artists celebrated their first art exhibition at the Phyllis Palmer Gallery at the School of Visual Arts and Design at the Bendigo Campus.

Chris Tay from Malaysia, a MACC scholarship winner and his colleague Saghar Hendi from Iran, both international students, exhibited work inspired by their roots. After playing with a few different ideas, they decided to focus on language and text as one of the first and most important elements international students experience when coming to Australia. Their approach was not the traditional oil and canvas paintings, but instead they focused on more decorative artworks, using fabrics, photography, installations and interactive pieces.

‘It feels great to be able to exhibit artworks in a space for the public to view them. It is always interesting to hear what the viewers say about them. It may be something totally different from how we perceive it, but art is supposed to be open for interpretation,’ says Chris after having his work exhibited for the first time.

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Saghar with La Trobe International Student Life Coordinator Grace White Feather

The opening night was a great success, with more than fifty people turning up. The interactive pieces received great attention, one of them requiring viewers to write the word ‘me’ in different languages on a dyed piece of fabric and then paste it on a piece of cloth provided. Chris and Saghar’s lecturers were also impressed with their work and how well they managed to have everything ready in time.

'We definitely learned a lot from this exhibition, besides all the art making. We were involved in all the behind-the-scenes stuff as well: invitation design, financial matters, media releases, installation of work, setting up lighting in the gallery, etc. It is an experience that one cannot get just from lectures and tutorials and it would be great to have other similar opportunities in the future,’ says Sanghar.

The Phyllis Palmer Gallery at Bendigo Campus is free for students to book and exhibit in, which gives emerging artists the opportunity to experience real life situations.

La Trobe offers several arts courses at Bundoora and Bendigo Campuses. Chris and Saghar are both visual arts students, a course which is offered exclusively at the Bendigo Campus.