Artists’ Syllabus: Jessie French
Testing Grounds Emporium, 438 Queen St
For this Artists' Syllabus, Jessie will be leading a discussion around Karan Barad's essay ‘On Touching: The Inhuman That Therefore I Am.’ Jessie will also draw on experience from her own practice.
Artists’ Syllabus invites local artists and designers to select and share a text that has been influential to their practice. By sharing selected passages, the artist will give unique insight into the significance of the text from their perspective. Through this exploration we will seek to discover the direct, tangential or unexpected ways the text has had an impact on the artists’ chosen discipline/s, creative process, and approach to presenting completed works. In group discussion, we will untangle the themes explored in the text and bring attention to those formative passages which sparked an ‘ah-ha moment’ or cemented in the mind. More broadly, we will get together to exchange our ideas (and our reading lists).
Supported by City of Melbourne Arts Grants and Michael Robertson.
Image: Jessie French working with large sheet works in the Other Matter Studio, 2022. Photo: Phillip Huynh.
Jessie French is an artist and experimental designer based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Housed within an ethos of consumption, sustainability and regeneration, her practice invites engagement with the possibilities of a post-petrochemical world. Through experimenting with materials, she explores the potential of closed-loop systems, (re)use, conscious consumption and interaction with objects. In 2020, French founded OTHER MATTER, an experimental design studio working with algae-based bioplastics which tangibly explores application of new materials she develops though objects, experiences and futures.