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Ömie is an immersive installation that honours and contextualises the forest context, material culture and art practices of the Ömie people of Oro province in Papua New Guinea.
What could have been a standard hang on white walls instead became a highly immersive environment that references PNG forest context and contextualises the practice of making traditional barkcloth for the Sydney audience. Tall, thin black walls stand quietly as silhouettes within the gallery space backgrounded by a projection of dappled light. The concept design offered an opportunity to shift from a traditional hang and honour the artefacts’ contemporaneity in a more immersive, grand-scale environment made of temporary freestanding walls and light projection.
This exhibition reinvents standard approaches to exhibition design within art institutions. Walls within these institutions are installed over a period of weeks and are inevitably lightweight construction with plasterboard finish resulting in tonnes of waste every year. This exhibition achieves an efficient and sustainable outcome to minimise museum waste, utilise recycled, recyclable and pre-finished materials whilst adapting an existing structure instead of demolishing it.
Four freestanding walls hang from the existing roof structure using a simple bracket mechanism fashioned from threaded rods and steel plate - achieving a grand monolithic black planes. Rudimentary, everyday materials and technology were used to create a highly efficient but experiential installation.
Photographs by Hamish Macintosh