Details on Auckland Museum's upcoming ‘Carried Away’ exhibition
Handbags, plastic bags, backpacks, chatelaines, kete, briefcases, inrō, miser’s purses, basikete and pohā - these everyday objects reflect the incredibly diverse uses and aesthetics of bags around the world and throughout history. Carried Away: Bags Unpacked opens at the Auckland War Memorial Museum this June, showcasing more than 150 bags and exploring the stories associated with their creation and the people who used them. Remix takes a closer look at just a few of the bags on display.
BAG (LARGE) 2018
Made by Isaac Katzoff
Auckland, New Zealand
Made from glass
Isaac Katzoff’s glass plastic bag prompts a conversation about the value of the object it mimics – why make something disposable into something precious? Why preserve a thing we usually throw ‘away’? ‘Bag (large)’ is free-blown from clear glass then hand moulded with leather and further blown until the now thin glass collapsed on itself. Wrinkles are added by pincers.
RED FLOWER BAG 1994
Made by Rochelle Cant
Auckland, New Zealand
Made from paper, plastic, raffia
Artist Rochelle Cant has dressed up an everyday paper bag with a vibrant collar of red plastic flowers attached to a crocheted raffia neck and a sprinkling of French knots. Cant’s work glories in the process of making, which she describes as ‘blue collar craftsmanship’. Familiar materials and domestic crafts are mainstays of her practice.
HANDWORK BAG 2007
Made by Vita Cochran
Dunedin, New Zealand
Made from Polyester
Maker Vita Cochran describes this bag as an ‘accessory made of accessories, and a homage to the hands that wore gloves, did embroidery and carried workbags. I embroidered and arranged the fingers like feathers and made off-cuts into wearable “wrists”.’ Cochran’s surrealist bag contains imagination and wit, and remakes domestic and fashion cast-offs into something artistic but also practical.
Visit Carried Away: Bags Unpacked from June until October 2019
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