Craft / 2024 Objects in Motion, Tom Moore, Tom Buckland, Eleanor Evans & Giovanni Aguilar, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, until December 13. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

Animation is the theme of the main exhibition Objects in Motion at Tuggeranong Arts Centre.

Tom Moore, Tom Buckland and Eleanor Evans & Giovanni Aguilar are all showing different approaches to this world of fantasy.

Tom Moore, a glass artist born in Canberra and now living in Adelaide, is showing an early work, Chorus of Wonders. Photos by Grant Hancock were translated into animation by the late Jonathan Nix, who was also a musician. Moore painted corrugated cardboard to form the backdrops and several pieces of these are also on display. His hybrid objects – part animal, part human, part bird, part fish forming a wondrous and humorous whole – are expertly made. Moore is a highly accomplished glass artist.

Moore’s whimsical creatures are based in a major concern for the environment. The work on display was made quite early in Moore’s career, and it is fun to see them once again.

Tom Buckland is sculptor based in Canberra who spent much of his youth in the fantasy world of science fiction: movies, novels and video games. He began making his own costumes and spaceships from objects that were to hand, often the detritus of our domestic lives.

He also is showing a work made in 2018 – a homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey. He recreated every scene himself. This work – starring himself – is being displayed on a collection of rescued TVs, along with some of the costumes and props.

The third exhibitor is the pair known as Eleanor & Giovanni, Eleanor Evans and Giovani Aguilar. They are showing props, musical instruments as well as the puppets they use to create their animated story projects.

One display is of a variety of stringed instruments, such as guitars and a violin. An example of their story telling is the music video made for CJ Shaw, Ain’t Many Like Lennie, which tells the story of Lennie Gwyther, who, when he was nine, rode his horse Ginger from Leongatha, Victoria, to see the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, a distance of 1400 kms. This is a heart-warming and uplifting story, and one worth being captured in animation like this. A boy on his felted horse rides past an imposing Victorian-era building.

Each of these three artists bring whimsy, play and the home-made into their work. It is an exhibition that might appeal to children, but will definitely appeal to adults. It shows extraordinary adaptive skills, wild imaginations, and a determination to bring stories to life.