Visual Arts / Abode, Caroline Huf, Janet Long and Kati Gorgenyi. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, until June 8. Reviewed by KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.

An abode is a place of habitation. It is related to the Old English word, abide, meaning to stay.

An abode is not necessarily a place of permanency but somewhere that provides shelter at a given time. It is this feeling of impermanence, of the sifting boundaries of shelter and safety and our understanding of it that connects the many complex themes in this exhibition.

Janet Long considers an abode as a place that can be both a physical and a mental refuge.  She investigates this duality in both a physical and spiritual sense, drawing on her immersion in meditation and Asian philosophy. She quotes the expression of the Buddha that decries “the Householder’s life” as full of the complication of worldly existence as well as the transience of time.

This space between the physical and the other realm is illustrated by her work Zen Space and Globe Abode and underscored by her two works Mind the Gap 1 – seeing red, and Mind the Gap 2 – reflective. These latter works are made from collated patterned wall paper. Their muted colour scheme is interrupted by bright areas of strategically applied paint; an illustration perhaps of the need to Mind the Gap.

Kati Gorgenyi is conscious of her Hungarian heritage – woven into her DNA are her ancestral forebears who were part of the shifting cultures of Europe and the diaspora that caused them to seek an abode elsewhere. They took with them embedded in their personal histories deep layers of family memories and different cultures.  By tracking their DNA patterns this history can be revealed.

Gorgenyi’s work Together is made up of silhouettes of figures sewn together to symbolise the layers of ancestral history revealed by DNA.

Her two groups of small paintings are inspired in part by Gorgenyi’s childhood in the oppressive atmosphere of socialist Hungary. The artist uses an encaustic technique of hot wax that gives the works a smooth surface that seems to enshrine these memories.

The experience of being a migrant gives Gorgenyi empathy with those who seek an abode of safety. Her mobile sculpture Detention is a collection of small nests made from feathers enclosed in chicken wire.  It visually captures the helplessness of detainees or transients caught up in government bureaucracy without the means to escape.

Caroline Huf is also interested in the long lines of memory that weave throughout our lives. She uses recycled speaker wire and recorded sounds of daily life to illustrate how lines of communication also connect us but can also be disrupted. This is visually illustrated in her work Interior Dialogues #1 where tangles of recycled speaker wire erupt from recycled chairs.

However it is her digital video Shipwreck that really makes an impression. Created during her 2023 artist’s residency on King Island, it is a telling commentary on immigration policies worldwide.

The video is both beautiful in its imagery but disturbing in its content. A woman is shown cast adrift off the rocky shoreline of King Island. We see this woman flailing and helpless amidst the eddying water and enormous jungles of Bull Kelp as she tries to reach the safety of the shore.

Subtitles cross the screen like ticker tape with announcements couched in the language of bureaucratic officialese. It is so cringe making because we recognise the underlying negative message couched in polite terminology.

The importance of the small suitcase clutched by the woman is a poignant symbol of the loss of all belongings. It resonated with me as I have seen a flotsam of single shoes washed up on a Greek beach. Each one belonging to someone trying to seek a better life and an abode that is a permanent home.