Regenerative Strategies by Gian Manik
Presented by Vessel at the Naval Store

The Naval Store has become the site of a dynamic and multi-disciplinary collaboration between visual artist Gian Manik and students from eight Walyalup/Fremantle Primary Schools in the latest exhibition from Vessel Contemporary, Regenerative Strategies.

Boorloo/Perth raised, and Naarm/Melbourne based artist Manik worked with over 250 Primary School students from Year 1 and Year 2 to create nine large scale works that responded to environmental themes, and in doing so developed the students’ artistic skills and encouraged their appreciation for their natural surroundings. The title of the exhibition, Regenerative Strategies, is an ecological term and recent artistic buzzword. In the context of the exhibition the phrase refers to reimagining the relationship our communities have with our natural environment towards the outcome of sustainability.

Manik encouraged each school to respond to a specific artistic brief with acrylic paints and a 2 x 3 metre canvas. Once the students had completed the canvas, it was returned to Manik who added his own elements over each artwork in oil paints and mixed media, thereby building upon the student compositions and enhancing each artwork’s themes.

The result is a monumental, cohesive, thoughtful and playful exploration of the heritage of our natural landscapes, what these landscapes are now, and where they might be headed given the climate crises we face.

One of the artworks, Erosion control solutions (2025) is a collaboration between Manik and East Fremantle Primary School. The students have rendered in blue and earthy acrylic paints the shape of a coast and its plant life in simple, organic, and yet evocative shapes. On top of this composition Manik has then added elements such as a water tower and rows upon rows of light blue blocks, meant to represent two story apartments near the coast, which skirt the edge of the water and vanish into the distance. The effect of the work, in both its scale and the poetic combination of symbols, colours and shapes, highlight the hubris of building endlessly near the coast without heeding the rhythms of our natural environment.

To further accentuate the themes of the exhibition, each artwork is accompanied by a poem from writer Timmah Ball. For Erosion control solutions Ball provided the following words:

Other things followed 
After the architectures
Swept away 
Beaches dissolved
As quickly as the temperatures 
Kept rising.

The restrained and yet purposeful poems from Ball operate like a fable alongside the paintings, mirroring the works’ descriptive, pensive and foreboding natures. 

This exhibition was curated by Anika Kristensen, and the raw and exposed construction of building’s interior provides a sharp contrast to the vivid nature of the paintings. All the artworks are suspended by wires and face towards each other in the central alcove of the Naval Store, allowing conversation and interplay between not only each artwork, but their corresponding poems.

Regenerative Strategies is an exhibition with a fresh combination of talent and a poignant message. Through the unique combination of Manik and the Fremantle Primary School students, each artwork explores a facet of humanity’s relationship with the natural environment through the process of skill sharing, artistic expression, and local connection. Catch this exhibition in situ if you can. 

The Fremantle Primary Schools that participated in Regenerative Strategies are:

• Lance Holt School
• North Fremantle Primary School
• East Fremantle Primary School
• White Gum Valley Primary School
• Richmond Primary School
• Beaconsfield Primary School
• Cottesloe Primary School
• Our Lady Fatima

Regenerative Strategies is open Wednesday to Sunday until 10 August.

For more information on the Regenerative Strategies exhibition, visit:
https://vesselcontemporary.org