images: Courtesy of the artist
May 1 - June 16, 2023
Launch event: Friday, May 5, 5:30-7:30pm
Free entry, all welcome
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You can find Peter Owen, Flower Punk: Permaculture for Arts'n'Craft in The Mill’s Showcase Space,
located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).The Showcase Space is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
The Mill is excited to present Flower Punk: Permaculture for Arts'n'Craft, a debut collaborative exhibition by furniture maker and The Mill studio resident Peter Owen. Celebrating the history of repurposed materials, Peter’s work brings us back to the transformative power of the artist’s hand. Peter has collaborated with other Mill studio residents Julianne Brandt, Blake Canham-Bennett, Hamish Fleming, Eleanor Green, Evie Hassiotis, Kate O’Callaghan, Bob Window and Robyn Wood.
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This exhibition explores art and crafts' relationship to sustainable living. My Flower Punk lamps are a celebration of hand-craft as our greatest source of renewable energy. Beneath the logic of mass production, third world exploitation, and in competition with improperly costed fossil fuels, we have lost sight of the efficiency and beauty in skilled work. The Flower Punk's joy and guiding principle is found in every opportunity to celebrate the maker over the machine.
My lamp series has developed from an expression of my craft, into an opportunity to collaborat. I have worked with fellow artists to create works, some of which have become the lampshade and others the lamp base. I want to dazzle the audience with the creative possibilities of sustainable culture!
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After his first love of music and philosophy resulted in a decade of stage-hand work at the Sydney Opera House, Peter realised his creative outlet in the end wasn't the ephemeral arts, but carpentry and craft. What has followed has been an eventful career as a furniture maker, both doing commissions and as workshop manager for The Bower - a Sydney not for profit focused on principles of reuse and repair. Having recently moved to Adelaide, Peter has stationed himself at The Mill to now focus on his flower punk lamps: A series inspired by the permaculture movement, by taking their principles and methodology in the garden and applying it to art and craft. These lamps, made from mostly repurposed materials, will illuminate on the theme of our two great solar powers - greenery (photosynthesis) and human labour. Key to Peter's philosophy is that it will be from the arts that we can find the subtle knowledge necessary to redress our societies in the face of climate change.
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Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com