Sue Pedley & Tess Horwitz
Entering the space of The Convict and the Jew is to enter the etched out familial space of Sue Pedley and Tess Horwitz. Their combined histories are invoked here, cheekily referenced in the politically incorrect baldness of the moniker they have given to their exhibition. Pedley and Horwitz draw on these weighty words to form the framework for their collaborative efforts. However, this is not an exhibition showcasing a political essentialism of the 'Convict' and the 'Jew', but rather appropriates these tags to engage with the nuanced personalised histories of both artists.
These histories are inscribed geographically via their mapping of the space of past familial links. Their work traces a geography of familial ties, realised literally through the charting of their family histories in the space of this exhibition. The work is thus framed by a suggested geography that, incidentally, harks back to the literal localized identity of the convict in Van Dieman's Land and the Jew in Auschwitz. Cartographies are activated in the space through the traces left by photography, drawing, sound and the hushed light that animates these elements. Pedley and Horwitz articulate a mapping through imprinting, inscription, threading, a tying up of loose ends.
Maps and old portraits stain the surface of large paper and canvas lamps that hang in the centre of the exhibition space, giving them an archival terminology. A family tree on an adjacent wall forms a map of names on its branches that sprout across the wall, locating each family member in its hierarchical space. The marks of inscription of these family topographies in the exhibition are the residues of the artists' sifting and sorting through the stories that mark out family