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Credit: Courtesy of Elize Strydom/Make Nice
Make Nice, a collaborative symposium born of a Slack account dedicated to fostering a sense of solidarity and community between likeminded creative women, has announced that they will be staging an all-female group exhibition celebrating the work of contemporary Australian artists.
The exhibition will open the ‘un-conference’s’ weekend long program at the Special Group Gallery in Surry Hills. Aptly-titled Women, it will showcase the work of emerging and mid-career artists including the photographer with collagist tendencies Kitty Callaghan; Lara Merrett, whose billowing pre-painted canvasses explode notions of space; Evie Cahir, a Melbourne-based artist and illustrator; Arielle Gamble, a multidisciplinary graphic designer, art director and illustrator; Elize Strydom, a documentary photographer; Nadia Hernandez, the multidisciplinary artist and graphic designer; Sydney-based painter Ondine Seabrook; and the graphic still life and portrait painter Bridgette McNab.
The exhibition compliments the collective’s sophomore ‘un-conference’ – one that does away with the ‘gross networking’ of conventional meet-ups in favour of one created by and for all female-identifying creatives. Taking place over two days in September, Make Nice was launched in 2016 by co-founders and co-directors Alexandra Winters and Ngaio Parr as a three-day conference held during Vivid Ideas. The format ostensibly does away with the standard key-note lecture format in favour of collaborative, interactive and participant-led panels that immerse both audience and speaker within topics as diverse as I’ve Started My Thing, Now What?, Confidence in Career, Pressure to be Perfect/Imposter Syndrome and Collaboration over Competition.
Speakers appearing include the American journalist Ann Friedman, whose writing on gender, politics and culture has appeared in publications including New York Magazine, The Gentlewoman, the New York Times and The New Republic; Stanislava Pinchuk, an artist and tattooist who trades under the name Miso and who is perhaps best known for her fine art works comprised of incredibly ornate pin holes on paper; the author, illustrator and designer Becky Simpson, founder of the online gifting store Chipper Things; and Leah Procko, formerly Head of Creative at the Sydney Opera House and currently the Design Director at Round, a Melbourne-based design practice that aims to transform brands through harnessing the power of cross-cultural communication.
Also appearing at Make Nice: the writer, dancer and activist Amrita Hepi; the founder of ethical cosmetic brand Kester Black, Anna Ross; public art and events curator Jess Scully, founding director of Vivid Ideas and recently elected as a City of Sydney councillor; founder of branding and consultancy firm Monogram, Amy Nadaskay; and Lex Hirst, a commissioning editor for Penguin Random House and an events programmer whose work is deeply embedded in the landscape of contemporary Australian youth culture.
You can find out more information about Make Nice here.
Tile image: Courtesy of Kitty Callaghan/Make Nice
Cover image: Courtesy of Ordine Seabrook/Make Nice
