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Performance and installation artist Teresa Andrew's exhibition explores childhood memory and past history through various media.

dis-comfort, by Dunedin artist Teresa Andrew, combines installation and video performance, in a new exhibition opening at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū on 23 July. The work, which follows dis-grace, a performance installation that featured at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery last year, is part of a series by the artist.

Teresa Andrew says dis-comfort is made in response to childhood memories of stories told, including those relating to the German history of World War II. Andrew's German grandmother cared for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and the stories of her experiences were passed to the artist by her mother.

'The work represents a reality and remembered/forgotten sensations and experiences, it speaks of violence, dictatorship, neglect and painful unspoken memory/experiences,' Teresa Andrew says.

Andrew says the collection of objects used within the installation, which includes the repetitive use of a white swastika symbol, milk biscuits and soap, are dislocated from their everyday context through their placement and positioning.

'I use familiar and unfamiliar signs of childhood/history. Each individual object is repeated to form a series, a collection.'

'These objects, positioned in a particular space and within a particular context offer the viewer a different, unexpected reading of them.'

The exhibition will also include a performance, recorded during the installation process and displayed as part of the work.

Gallery curator of contemporary art Felicity Milburn says the work deals with serious issues in an evocative way, through the use of symbols and images that represent both personal and historic experiences.

'Teresa Andrew's work, though challenging, is also positive, in the sense that it publicly addresses memories of oppression and violence, while placing an emphasis on the process of remembering through generations.'

Related Events

Art Bite: Wednesday 18 August, 12.30 pm. Jennifer Hay, the Gallery's Curatorial Assistant, Contemporary Art, on Teresa Andrew's dis-comfort installation. Admission is by donation.

Exhibition number 721