“You sit on the train or bus and there are people around us and you don’t know their stories.” says artist, Sarah Goffman, while addressing the “City of Plenty” education team during their first official meeting.
Interview with Sarah Goffman
By Kathleen Sta Ana and Brooke Vincent
As the City of Plenty initiative kicks off, artist Sarah Goffman had time to sit down and discuss her ideas and hopes for this creative project for the Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers Bequest with the group of students working as education partners on the blog and the installation.
The City of Plenty installation will feature the development of a city, using only non-perishable items and typical household consumables. Goffman “sees a gallery like a coffee shop, a place for discussion” choosing to question social and economic factors of our world and their effect on people and their lives. Goffman wants to be able to “gather as much food and non-perishables as possible” in order to give back to those in the community who are in need of these donations.
Goffman hopes that our connections with food in this work will spark conversations in our community about issues such the culture of consumerism, consumption and waste as well as the ongoing issues of those who don’t have easy access to food in our community such as those who are poor and homeless. “We can all relate to food”. Goffman said. “We’ve all had tinned tomatoes at some point in [our] lives; corn to baked beans. These are things that we have in common and it’s not to alienate people, but to bring people together.” The unifying nature of food is a key idea in Goffman’s installation. “You’re human, you’ve got to eat,” she explains.
The City of Plenty aims at “having that symbiosis” as Goffman calls it, an exchange between those who have, and can give to those who need. Goffman reiterated the idea by saying “This is a community project and a collaboration because, without the community donating, then it would sort of just be nowhere.” The Australian Council of Social Services has recorded that 13.9% of the Australian population are living below the international poverty line and that percentage is reflected in the Penrith local area. Goffman’s project hopes to acknowledge and challenge the “great deal of hopelessness” that is prevalent in our society and hopes to support the “people who are not privileged and have not have family or people looking after them”. Goffman also went on to discuss the benefits to the giver that go beyond just benefitting the recipient of the donations used in the artwork. Goffman went on to explain the positives for the giver. “It’s a double gift to the giver, they get to give and see it installed, hopefully, in a beautiful way.”
Goffman’s artistic practice for some years has been centred around exploring the socio economic factors and the political systems that we live alongside. Goffman’s work sets out to be a medium for social commentary. Her precisely painted blue and white bottles and tableware in her work Plastic Arts, 2009, make reference to the patterns of prized Chinese Ming pottery, objects Goffman loves but can’t afford. However, they are made from accessible recycled plastic bottles and takeaway containers, commodities that are at the opposite end of the value scale compared to the rare collectables of Chinese Ming ceramics. Goffman commented “I’m very passionate about collecting and assembling and having a sort of dialogue between the objects in a multitude of ways, even temporarily”.
Sarah Goffman, Plastic Arts, PET plastics, enamel paint, permanent marker, 2009. Photo: Michael Myers. Reproduced with permission from artist and Mori Gallery
Goffman’s installation in Artspace during 2012 focussed on the Occupy Movement that occurred in 2011. In this work, she re-presented the witty slogans and comments on placards used by members of the Occupy groups in an organised, precise wall documenting these words of protest. For the City of Plenty exhibition, Goffman is collaborating with the education team to produce a new work presenting the public with wall of facts and quotes to further provoke conversation about the installation’s central themes. In the City of Plenty installation, Goffman will also include a few items of perishables will be included to highlight and challenge the existing constructions. Goffman also revealed that she would enjoy doing a similar project to City of Plenty again, since her interest was in commenting on the way our society works in exciting and collaborative ways.
At the conclusion of the installation, the work will be dismantled and all the food and goods will be donated to Penrith Community Kitchen and to OzHarvest, the two project partners for the City of Plenty. The donations will help each organisation in their efforts to supply food for those in our community who are in need.
Donations will continue to be accepted throughout the project’s running and will be gratefully accepted by the gallery, the project partners and Sarah Goffman herself. The project runs until the 29th of March and will continue to be documented here on this blog. Any donations towards the project can be donated in any of the blue City of Plenty bins around Penrith.
City of Plenty 