14 Sep Damien Shen | Bowness Prize Monash Gallery of Art

Damien Shen has been announced as a finalist in the 2017 Monash Gallery of Art’s Bowness Prize for his new series of work Still life after Penn.  

Damien Shen will feature among the other finalists at the Monash Gallery of Art from 14 October – 26 November. The winner of the Bowness prize will be announced Thursday 19 October.

Still life after Penn explores histories of disrespecting and degrading human remains, including the stealing of remains from graves and hospital morgues by anthropologists and physicians.

‘Still life after Penn is a complex interrogation of many things. It seeks to begin dialogues about what is right and what is wrong, about the living and the dead, and the spaces in between, while simultaneously interrogating the practices of museums historically and in the here and now… the remains of Shen’s ancestors still sit in boxes within the collection stores of museums here in Australia and abroad, waiting to be returned to their homelands’ 

– Glen Isenger-Pilkington, 2017