Artist uses anonymous survey to create unique artwork

Exhibition: Sarah McEwan: Feelings from Bodies
When: Until Sunday 17 March 2019
Launch: Friday 8 March 2019 at 6.30pm, performance at 7pm
Where: Main Gallery

Sandigo artist Sarah McEwan has captured the voices of 50 anonymous survey participants to create her new exhibition, Feelings from Bodies.

People surveyed were asked what makes them feel hopeful, fearful, think of change, destruction and feminism. Their intimate answers are captured in a large-scale installation within the main gallery space.

The exhibition will be launched as part of International Women’s Day, with McEwan surveying Mayor of the City of Wagga Wagga Councillor Greg Conkey OAM, artist Vicky Okot, activist Holly Conroy and other local participants.

The five-question survey will create an “installation conversation” to bring the exhibition alive at the launch on Friday 8 March.

The artist developed Feelings from Bodies during a Create NSW Regional Fellowship, where McEwan spent two weeks in Los Angeles at the Women’s Centre for Creative Work in May 2018.

During this residency, she developed a survey and led to Ewan creating portraits of the responses.

“It’s so energising to see the social nature of this work, valuing people as active contributors to meaning making rather than them being seen as subject or objects,” Wagga Wagga Art Gallery Curator Drew Halyday said.