Nuns Reversing

2018 - The End Festival, Hill End, NSW

Nuns Reversing was an installation and travelling curio presented as part of The End Festival at Hill End. The two nun sculptures, constructed as carnival cut-outs, and the Caravan Camera Obscura point to and reference Jeffrey Smart’s Nuns’ Picnic, 1957.

The work is participatory, inviting audiences to become the nuns and perform the scene from the painting. Visitors can sit inside the Caravan Camera Obscura and experience the distorted world of the scene projected through the camera obscura, appearing upside down and in reverse.

The work extends my interest in travelling curiosities, reimagining an iconic Australian painting through play, participation and the optical experience of the camera obscura.