40: Penelope & the Seahorse: Artist Mikala Dwyer

In this special episode of Object Matters, hear a live recording of a public event held in March 2023, when visual artist Mikala Dwyer is interviewed by Toni Ross about the Chau Chak Wing Museum's fourth contemporary art project titled Mikala Dwyer: Penelope and the Seahorse. 

The exhibition at the Chau Chak Wing Museum is an aquatic-themed installation bristling with allusions to hippocampus, the genus name of the seahorse, derived from the Ancient Greek meaning ‘horse’ and ‘sea monster’.

In a wide ranging discussion they cover Mikala's practices, memory associations, the endangered status of seahorses, how she engaged with museum collection items including seahorse specimens (for example MHF.266) and ancient Greek vases depicting maritime mythology (for example NM98.41 and NMR.1021.1 both of which are in the exhibition), and how the name hippocampi was used for a structure within the brain that is shaped like a seahorse. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each of the temporal lobes. We are always with seahorses.

Guest:
Mikala Dwyer was born in Sydney in 1959 and now lectures at RMIT in Melbourne.
Mikala Dwyer has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally since the 1980s and is known for her distinctive experiments in sculpture, installation, and performance art.  Her practice is predominantly installation-based, in which she constructs idiosyncratic, personal spaces within the conventional architecture of the gallery, using materials that have a strong association with the body.

Mikala is interviewed by curator Dr Toni Ross, Honorary Senior Lecturer (Art Theory), Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Exhibition details: Mikala Dwyer: Penelope and the Seahorse (until October 2023)