From Ca$h 4 Gun$ to Material Institute to 24 Carrot Gardens, artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele will describe her lifelong commitment to work that combines social justice with conceptual art. Previously based in New Orleans, Kirsha created a living installation to buy guns off the street, set up a hacking school and developed community gardens for young people to grow and sell their own produce.
Kirsha has been resident at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) since 2010. Her curated exhibitions and feasts as performative art installations demonstrate her aesthetic vision and passion for bold and original concepts.
Finding inspiration everywhere, Kirsha will talk about Ps 1 L0V3 U—Mona’s hacking school in New Orleans and its fashion and music branches (Material Institute and The Embassy); Heavy Metal, a project exploring pollution in the Derwent River; and Eat the Problem—the art of transforming shit (invasive species) into gold. In conversation, she will discuss her love of the unexpected—in both art and life.
Kirsha Kaechele, Artist & Curator, Mona
Kirsha Kaechele is an American artist and curator interested in the space where complex problems exist. For Kaechele, problems are simply a medium for art.
Kaechele’s projects are based at Mona (The Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania and New Orleans. In addition to art curation they include: Feasts as living art installations – temporal exhibitions in which every element of a feast is sculpture or performance; 24 Carrot – a project that creates kitchen gardens in disadvantaged areas of Tasmania and New Orleans; Heavy Metal – an art-science project focused on the mercury contamination of Tasmania’s River Derwent; Trascism – Mona’s zero-waste initiative, now implemented across Mona Market and Mona’s festivals and events; PS 1 L0V3 Y0U – a free school in New Orleans pairing neighbourhood talent with high art, music, fashion, science and technology – a kind of Black Mountain College for urban youth.
All funds raised from this event support acquisitions for the NGV.
Please note that professional photography and video recording will occur at this event. Images and/or videos may be used for promotional purposes.
