Karen Casey’s new ‘Let’s Shake’ exhibition to showcase at Koorie Heritage Trust

Phoebe Blogg Published July 19, 2024 at 1.00pm (AWST)

arts

Karen Casey (Palawa), Let’s Shake (detail), 2006 – 2011. Collection of Koorie Heritage Trust. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Daniel Young in memory of Karen Casey. (Image: supplied)

The Koorie Heritage Trust is delighted to present the recent acquisition Let's Shake by the late internationally recognised artist and Palawa woman Karen Casey (1956–2021). Generously donated by her son Daniel Young - in memory of his mother - the new works featured in the exhibition are set to draw a crowd.

Let's Shake was a project committed to peace and reconciliation through the act of a handshake – an ongoing public event in which participants of different cultural backgrounds and ages shook hands with wet plaster held between their palms.

Before she passed Casey spoke on these works, sharing that Let's Shake is somewhat of a participatory art event:

"Let's Shake is a participatory art event encouraging people to extend a hand in friendship and go beyond their comfort zone to have a genuine connection with another person. The process involves casting the inside of a handshake while people sit opposite and communicate with each other," she said.

"Inspired by the notion of the space held within a handshake,'' she continued, "the process captures the united intention, communication and connection between two people."

Having previously been exhibited in 2008 at the Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia at Federation Square in 2008, and consequently in Mexico and New Zealand in 2011, and again in Melbourne in 2018, Let's Shake was last presented as part of the Lorne Sculpture Biennale in 2022 following Casey's passing in 2021. Following the Lorne Sculpture Biennale, the work was donated to the Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT) by Casey's son Daniel Young.

Featuring over 200 plaster casts from the series (of which there are 476), this will be the first the installation has been presented at KHT.

Designed in a linear format, the works will wrap around the walls of the gallery, creating an immersive contemplative space. This work was also born out of a series of public events that took place between 2006-2011 in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.

Casey studied fine art at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education before taking up silver-smithing and part-time graphic design. In 1986, she moved to Naarm (Melbourne), where she began her arts practice in painting and printmaking, soon becoming one of the groundbreaking First Peoples artists to exhibit in Australia and overseas during the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

With a career spanning more than three decades, Karen Casey explored the intersection between the arts, science and society. She worked across a wide range of media in her artistic practice, including painting, printmaking, installation, video, performance art and public art. A long-held interest in metaphysics informs Casey's practice, often expressed through works relating to consciousness and interconnection.

From the late 1980s, Casey exhibited widely nationally and internationally and is represented in significant private and public collections both in Australia and overseas.

Karen Casey: Let's Shake opens at KHT on Saturday 27 July until Sunday 24 November 2024.

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