Concrete Playground

A continuum means 'a continuous extent, series, or whole' and what curators Siân McIntyre, Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris and Hannah Kothe show with this exhibition at The Paper Mill is just how a shared thread of inherited traditional practice unites diverse artists.

Some of the works are more traditional than others, like the woven forms created by Tamara Burlando, but it is the way contemporary artists steeped in traditional techniques infuse their pieces with elements of today that makes their work a continuum. Burlando, South American by birth but trained in the Central Australian desert, weaves newspaper into her baskets, dating them and making them undeniably current. Denis Nona from the Torres Strait uses the traditional technique of carving, but does so on a skateboard, and Alan Griffiths of Waringarri Arts in north-east Western Australia similarly makes marks linked to traditional carving from the region, but in the form of a sugar lift etching.

Continuum also features Japanese artist Kasumi Ejiri, Polynesian weaver Sione Falemaka, Sydney-based duo Zarah and Safdar Ahmed, Aboriginal urban-based artists Bindi Cole, Esme Timbery and Marilyn Russell, Melbourne-based designer and puppeteer Stephen Muslin and artists from Waringarri Arts and Papunya Tjupi Arts, in Central Australia. Despite their varied practices and distinct upbringings, all these artists are united by the way they celebrate the artistic knowledge they've inherited.

Image: Tamara Burlando, Woven Basket Forms, 2011