Emi­ly Floyd
Keep­ing it Com­plex, Keep­ing it Connected

In Keep­ing it Com­plex, Keep­ing it Con­nect­ed, Emi­ly Floyd takes as a point of depar­ture a series of lec­tures by ear­ly learn­ing schol­ar Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor Mar­garet Carr, the tran­scripts for which are held in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Otago’s Uare Tao­ka o Hāke­na Hock­en Col­lec­tions. Floyd’s spe­cial­ly com­mis­sioned 27 metre wall-relief instal­la­tion acti­vates Pro­fes­sor Carr’s provo­ca­tions for mean­ing­ful, col­lab­o­ra­tive, nar­ra­tive-based learning.

Keep­ing it Com­plex, Keep­ing it Con­nect­ed turns towards the mech­a­nisms that shape think­ing and prac­tice, cre­at­ing a glos­sary of Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion con­cepts, incor­po­rat­ing the think­ing of Pro­fes­sor Alexan­dra C. Gunn and oth­er schol­ars to inform inclu­sive edu­ca­tion and social jus­tice with­in the local con­text. Book­end­ed by the Owl of Min­er­va, the exhi­bi­tion is pre­sent­ed as a space for gath­er­ing and mak­ing. Colour­ful and com­ic, Floyd’s sculp­tures aim to revise the rar­efied air of the research library into a space that is equal parts joy­ful and sur­re­al – recon­nect­ing with the com­plex­i­ty of edu­ca­tion­al theory.

Floyd con­struct­ed the fur­ni­ture for this shared space from the Auto­prog­et­tazione series by the Ital­ian mod­ernist design­er and artist Enzo Mari (1932−2020). Designed in 1974 as a response to the mass pro­duc­tion of fur­ni­ture, Mari’s designs pro­vid­ed an open-source blue­print for DIY mak­ers to cre­ate qual­i­ty design from sim­ple, acces­si­ble mate­ri­als. This social space might be con­sid­ered as an alter­na­tive way of con­sid­er­ing the archive or library – rein­forc­ing the impor­tance of both mak­ing and work­ing togeth­er as a means of knowl­edge exchange and pro­duc­tion. This ges­ture reflects Floyd’s wider inter­est in how her prac­tice might cre­ate open-end­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for empow­er­ing teach­ing and learn­ing through mak­ing and cre­ative thinking. 

As the Dunedin Pub­lic Art Gallery Cre­ative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Inter­na­tion­al Vis­it­ing Artist for 2022, Floyd has spent time in Ōtepoti research­ing this exhi­bi­tion. She will con­clude her res­i­den­cy with a series of pro­gramme events and workshops.

A Dunedin Pub­lic Art Gallery Vis­it­ing Artist Pro­gramme, sup­port­ed by Cre­ative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. Project Part­ner, Dunedin School of Art. Pro­duc­tion sup­port by Urban Art Projects.

Curat­ed by Lucy Hammond.