Film and design collective, COLLIDER has created the catalogue and collateral for artist Fiona Hall’s Wrong Way Time exhibition at the new Australian Pavilion in the 56th Venice Biennale this year.
COLLIDER uses Fiona Hall’s returning arrow motif, from her Wrong Way Time work, as the main feature of the campaign.
Creative director, Andrew Van Der Westhuyzen explains: “What could be more at home in this context than an arrow? It felt right to isolate her own painted form rather than, as designers, codify her intent. Instead we left it as her original painted form, extracting it from its context on a real clock and making it a strong recurring graphic device.”
“Three key outcomes form the campaign: the catalogue, tote bag and USB, while quite mundane at face value, each fills a particular purpose in the context of the Venice Biennale and competes on similar territory with other pavilions. The Venice tote is almost a mobile billboard for each exhibition, a good bag becomes a coveted object that can create a lot of awareness and buzz for a participating artist (we’ve heard some exhibitions are only visited for the bags).
“The catalogue aimed to provide a refined and focused encapsulation of the work to the serious art followers who expect a much deeper access to Fiona’s thinking and process. The design is highly mindful of the artwork and the curators telling of the exhibition.
“The USB is given out to media and becomes an important memento of Australia’s presence in Venice. This year we were quite ambitious (through great support from Australia Council) and involved Collider’s internal 3D modelling and printing R&D to create a real size prototype from which the custom metal sardine can was made (relating to Fiona’s intricate sardine can sculptures). A USB is also a container of sorts—we just swapped fish for data. The humour vs. expense is something we knew the art world in Venice would appreciate.”
Fiona Hall at the 56th Venice Biennale (May 2015). Managed by Australia Council for the Arts.
