Showing at The Mixing Room Gallery this February, Salt by Sammy Hawker includes works from a recent trip across Australia, travelling from the East Coast (the Yuin Nation & Arakwal Country) to Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre (Arabana Country)—places where a quiet magic resonates; where you lie on your back and feel the relief of your insignificance under the brittle diamond stars.
In her practice Sammy Hawker looks at ways to co-create imagery with the places she is working. Many of the photographs included in Salt have been processed in the location they were captured and exposed to traces of salt found within the site (ocean water, salt crust).
When processing photographic negatives with salt, the corrosive properties lift the silver emulsion and the representational image is rendered vague.
Still, an essence of the site is introduced to the frame as the vibrant matter paints its way onto the negative, a reminder of the dynamic agency of the more-than human, the unresolved mysteries that exist around us and the resonance of the deeper forces that will so creatively interrogate and transform a photograph.
Salt will open on February 9 and show until March 25, 2023 at The Mixing Room Gallery, located in Canberra at a timber recycling, furniture and joinery making business, Thor’s Hammer.
Learn more + join the opening opening event.
![Voices [Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre] — Sammy Hawker](https://www.walkersjournal.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Voices-Kati-Thanda-Lake-Eyre-1.jpg)
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sammy Hawker is an Australian based visual artist working predominantly on Ngunawal, Ngunnawal, Ngambri Country [Canberra, ACT].
In her practice Sammy examines forms of co-creation as a method of celebrating the voices of the worlds around us. She is particularly intrigued by the tactility of analogue film and the possibilities this presents in facilitating more-than human mark making on the final image. Sammy has co- created work with oceans, rivers, honey-bees, seaweed and Eucalpytus trees. The unpredictable input of these collaborators disrupts her authorial control and encourages a new ecology based on a postcolonial equality between the human and more-than human.
In 2022 Sammy’s work Mount Gulaga was the winner of the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize and acquired by the Muswellbrook Regional Art Centre. She was also a recipient of artsACT & Contour 556 ‘City Commissions’ grant, installed her work Ocean Resonance for the Canberra Art Biennial, and exhibited a video work Water Memory (in collaboration with Research Fellow Paul Wyrwoll) as part of the Waterways Country Symposium at the National Museum of Australia.
In 2021 Sammy’s solo exhibition ‘Acts of Co-Creation’, also at The Mixing Room Gallery, was a recipient of the Canberra Critics Circle Award for photography. The centrepiece of this exhibition Ngungara #1 was acquired by Canberra Museum & Gallery. In 2021 Sammy was also the ‘Dark Matter’ darkroom resident at PhotoAccess, ACT. The centrepiece of her residency solo exhibition, Melt, was acquired by the ACT Legislative Assembly.
OPENING NIGHT CELEBRATION
Join Sammy Hawker & Thor’s Hammer for the Salt opening night on Friday 10 February from 6 – 8pm. Listen to opening remarks from Virginia Rigney, Senior Curator Visual Art at Canberra Museum and Gallery, meet Sammy, and help yourself to complimentary drinks and nibbles. A selection of Sammy’s works will be available to purchase on the night, and throughout the exhibition. Event sponsored by Capital Brewing Co.
THOR’S HAMMER – MIXING ROOM GALLERY
Converted from an old dough mixing room used by the old Tip Top Bakery, The Mixing Room Gallery is a dual purpose creative space for the Canberra design & arts community, and furniture showroom for timber recycling and furniture-making company Thor’s Hammer.
With a spacious, industrial feel, The Mixing Room Gallery is an intimate venue that regularly hosts exhibitions and events, all with a sustainability, design and recycling focus.
