Partially submerged and obscured by the changing tides of the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River), a marooned and ghostly vessel will occupy an expanse of water beneath Fremantle’s Traffic Bridge.
Excessively loaded with local limestone rock spall, this unfamiliar vessel – a symbol of commerce and export – is reclaimed by a material of the landscape itself.
Masterfully restored and marooned by artist Andrew Sunley Smith in collaboration with Fremantle maritime and seafaring experts, Overload is a poetic and absurd gesture to our era of excess, instability and oppression.
Although disastrous in appearance, beneath the hull of the MS Overload there is hand-craft, the dutiful care of people, and the land rising to take back.
About the
artist
Andrew Sunley Smith
Andrew Sunley Smith is a UK and Australian artist currently residing in Fremantle, Western Australia. His practice encompasses and manifests the areas and diverse practices of pragmatic, co-efficient contemporary art and design, with a focus on the direct physical forms of relational aesthetics.
He has exhibited with UK Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed, Alicia Framis (ES) and Matthias Weischer (DE). Has organised and presented talks with Berlin-based artist Jimmie Durham and worked on creative productions for American musician Lou Reed and fellow UK contemporary artists, David Shrigley and Karla Black.
Andrew was a contributing lecturer for the MFA Environmental Art Studio programs at The Glasgow School of Art; Oxford Brookes University, UK; The University of Glasgow; the Bauhaus University, Weimer, Germany; the College of Fine Arts (COFA), University of New South Wales, Sydney; and currently as Post Graduate supervisor with the School of Design, Creative Arts and Social Enquiry, Curtin University, Western Australia.
Andrew is the currently the Creative Director of the contemporary art production space CP2O in Hamilton Hill, Western Australia – an independently funded communal facility which focuses on expansive, experimental creative practices.
His work is held in the national collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Sydney Australia, The University of Western Australia, The National Library of Australia, Canberra, and notable private collections including Penelope Seidler, AM and artist David Shrigley (UK) among others.
