Curated by Lili Harrison & Stella Martino

The physicality of the home has transformed over decades as people adapt to trends and technological advances. From the art deco of the 20s to mid-century ranch-style homes of the 50s, to 80s maximalism and 90s romantic, lived-in cuts and colours - homes have always represented a larger global image. The home, as a physical and conceptual space, is a structure built on safety, sanctuary and familiarity. Typically, the home has and still represents - and endorses stagnant domesticity and the nuclear family structure. But how can we challenge these existing, limiting ideas?

Today's homes are often either a mishmash of home design trends of the past, consisting of a collection of marketplace purchases and hand-me-downs. Or what we know as the Ikea display room, splattered in various shades of grey and beige - and furniture that looks better than how it feels. The performance of a home is most curious, it feels like you get a sense of who the people living in a home are but also considers how much of what's displayed is actually for the benefit of its inhabitants as opposed to what is expected from the greater society.

So, we are interested in using a postmodernist framework to take the performance of a home and what it contains and unravel it to reveal something more, something else, something deeper - more obscure, plain, visceral, tender etc. How much of our home favours excess over function? What does this mean for accessible homeware and by extension, artistic takes on homeware i.e. the humble chair? Does the uncanny have a place on the mantle? What if there was no limit on function? Or what if the function had inconceivable consequences?

This exhibition encourages artists and designers to transform everyday homeware, home design, familial structures and standard ideologies related to what a home should be and make them un/dysfunctional. This can be as literal, or as abstract as the artist desires, from an architecturally-leaning maquette, to a blown up object.

Written by Stella Martino