10 February - 31 March, 2012

Kelly's Garden, Salamanca Arts Centre,
Hobart, Tasmania

Elizabeth Woods' work at Kelly's Garden, Hobart, is part fiction, part art installation, part public event, part fund-raiser. In a mock-funerary rite, the opening event presented a blue-grey 1967 Toyota Corona, descended upon by a murder of crows, amidst the sombre notes of a gipsy accordion - the guests paid their last respects and shared fond remembrances of Porphyry, the once-illustrious visionary who died in tragic obscurity, rendered obsolete by contemporary conservatism.

In the ensuing months, the work was the prize in a fund-raising raffle, a procedure that would eventually reduce the work from the status of art to a collection of practical, usable and imminently saleable commodities - dissolving the vision into the mundane.

The raffle was drawn, as part of the Big Weekend celebrating the 35th birthday of the Salamanca Arts Centre, at Kelly's Garden on Friday  30th of March. It was won by Fiona Barber, and the proceeds were donated to the Salamanca Arts Centre.

Séan Kelly's catalogue essay for the exhibition is available here.