Bena Jackson and Teresa Collins, Bound In Secret Knots

Working with discarded goods and salvaged materials, Bound in secret knots includes new sculptural and moving image works by Pōneke Wellington-based artists Bena Jackson and Teresa Collins.

Jackson and Collins’ new project departs from a self-imposed limitation: to produce an exhibition from discarded goods. The project follows months of engaging with different processes of gathering—from requesting scraps from local businesses and collecting from public pavements, to making use of online forums, and a public call for unwanted items held at Enjoy in July 2020. The use of found materials extends to the small details; used nails and screws found in a cup in the gallery’s storeroom, and holes patched with plastic straws.

Looking towards the informal networks within which objects circulate, the artists consider cycles of consumption under advanced capitalism, proposing playful, unlikely uses for what would otherwise be consigned to waste. Jackson and Collins remain sensitive to the affective charge many of their materials may have held, or still hold, for their former owners, while proposing new routes for meaning-making and storytelling. The installation enquires into forms of assigned value and to spaces where alternatives to a monetary economy already thrive.

About the Artists
Teresa Collins most often works with painting and sculpture. Recent exhibitions and curatorial projects include Hi Hi Walls at Meanwhile, Pōneke, 2020; 6021/1052 with Gabrielle Stoddard at Window Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 2020; 2+2+2 at Precinct35, Pōneke, 2020; and Storm water solutions with Bena Jackson at Toi Pōneke, 2019. Teresa holds a BFA from Massey University.

Bena Jackson primarily works with installation and moving images. She holds a BFA from Massey University and is a facilitator at Play_Station. Recent exhibitions include Same thing every day, with Max Fleury at Window Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau 2020; Golden light in the dairy, with Rob Cherry at {Suite}, Pōneke, 2020; One Who Goes Quickly, with Max Fleury for Circuit's Masons Screen, Pōneke, 2020; and Storm water solutions, with Teresa Collins at Toi Pōneke, 2019.

Image: Bena Jackson and Teresa Collins, After looking in the shed we looked on top, 2021, digital video, still. Image courtesy of the artists.