Maxxi Minaxi May | Synthetic (collaboration with Dawn Gamblen) | 2011 | H200cm x W500cm x D20cm installation | Plastic straws, tack | Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts (Vic.)

Synthetic centres on ideas around collecting, artful display, consumerism, process and the experiential nature of art making. Continuing on from Marcel Duchamp’s legacy of the ready-mades, this installation illustrates existing notions towards bought objects as resources for contemporary art approaches. Materials provided from the manufacturing and consumerist world are used to narrate replication through identical objects. In this instance, the spotlight is on plastic, a readily available material that conveys notions of the artificial and inorganic whilst also being undeniably durable, flexible in its use and purpose and vibrantly colourful. Colour is integral to our process as a myriad of rainbow straws are brought into play to create Synthetic as an object-scape of animated pathways. Being installation based the artwork ironically is uncollectible, in a sense anti-consuming. The expansive sculptural environment echoes the inexpensive, familiar and easily obtainable aspects of consumables whilst highlighting the intrinsic qualities of plastic as a medium.